Roof repair

What we will repair

Pipe boots and other penetrations, wall step flashing, chimney saddles, valley metal or woven valleys that have opened, lifted ridge caps, and a slope of shingles the wind took. On tile, a cracked field tile or a broken hip stop. On flat roofs, a failed seam, a scupper that ponds, or a curb around a mechanical unit.

Active leaks get priority over stains. A ceiling spot from last spring still needs a diagnosis, but water in the house today is the job we schedule first.

What a repair visit should answer

Where the water entered, whether it is still entering, and whether the field of the roof is sound enough that the patch will outlive the next season. We photo the spot. If the honest answer is replacement, the repair estimate turns into that conversation instead of a temporary smear of mastic.

Mastic has a place as a short emergency stop in bad weather. It is not a roofing system. If the estimate is mostly tubes of sealant on an aging shingle roof, ask what happens next winter.

• Leak tracing from the stain back to the penetration or flashing
• Replacement of failed boots and flashings, not a coat of cement over them
• Matching shingles when the product is still made, and a clear note when it is not
• A written limit: this repair, this slope, not a warranty on the rest of a tired roof

Utah patterns we see every year

Spring on the Wasatch Front brings wind and the first hard rain on roofs that dried out all winter. Lifted tabs show up on the west sides of Pleasant Grove, Syracuse, Hooper, and the open streets in Eagle Mountain. Cottonwoods along the Jordan River, Utah Lake, and older valley lots pack gutters and then valleys, and the leak looks like a roof failure when it is a drainage failure.

In Washington County the monsoon does the same job in a shorter window. A tile roof can look fine from the yard while the underlayment — the actual waterproofing — has a hole at a valley. We do not walk tile carelessly, and we do not sell a field of new tiles to fix one torn underlayment detail without saying which it is.

Ice dams on shaded eaves in Logan, Huntsville, Mantua, and the upper benches push water sideways. A repair there may be heat cable as a stopgap, but the lasting fix is usually ventilation, insulation, and membrane at the eave — sometimes a replacement of that edge, not the whole house.

Emergency calls

If the roof is open to weather, the first step is drying the house in: a tarp secured so it does not become the next piece of debris, and interior water stopped as well as a roofer can. A tarp is not a repair. The estimate for the permanent work follows when the slope is safe to be on.