Having a roof looked at, and what you should get back

Free and paid are two different products

Almost every roof inspection offered around the bay is free, and the reason is simple: the company doing it would like to sell you a roof. There is nothing improper about that, it is how the trade works, and a good free inspection is genuinely useful.

It does mean the incentive sits on one side. Somebody whose income depends on replacement work is not the ideal judge of whether replacement is needed, and they would have to be unusually disciplined not to see it that way.

A paid inspection from somebody with nothing to fit is the other product. It costs a small amount, it takes longer, and the person writing it has no reason to reach one conclusion rather than another. On a decision worth thousands, that independence is cheap.

Most of the time the free version is the right choice. The three moments it is not are buying a house, choosing between repair and replacement on an expensive roof, and disagreeing with an adjuster's findings.

What a real look covers

The covering, slope by slope, with attention to which direction each one faces, because damage almost never distributes evenly.

The soft metal, which is the thing most likely to be skipped and the most useful evidence on the property. Gutters and downspouts, vent caps, chimney flashing, anything thin and painted. Marks there confirm impact in a way that a weathered shingle does not.

The penetrations. Vent boots, which are the single commonest leak on any roof and which the sun here finishes early. Skylights. Anywhere a pipe or a duct comes through.

The junctions. Where a roof meets a wall, where two slopes meet in a valley, where a porch roof ties into the main structure. That is where water is concentrated and where hurried work shows.

The edges, which in this part of the coast matter more than anywhere in the middle of the roof, for reasons set out on the storm page.

And the underside, if there is attic access. Daylight through the deck, staining on the sheathing, and whether the ventilation is doing anything are all visible from below and tell you things the surface will not.

Photographs before, not only after

This is the part almost nobody does and it costs nothing.

Once a year, before the season, walk around the house and photograph the roof from the ground on all four sides, plus the gutters and the vent caps. Keep them somewhere dated.

The value of that is entirely in the argument you may have later. When an adjuster's position is that damage predates the storm, a set of dated photographs showing a clean roof in May is the single most useful thing a homeowner can produce. There is no substitute for it afterwards.

Then decide what it is telling you

An inspection produces findings, not a decision. One failed part on a sound roof is a repair. The same fault at several details is a roof fitted badly. A roof near the end of its life with a leak is a timing question rather than a technical one.

If the answer is a replacement, what that costs and why is a separate question from what an insurer will pay. And if the covering is coming off anyway, the FORTIFIED standard is worth reading first, because the cheapest moment to meet it is the moment the deck is bare.