Most people call me hoping for a repair. Sometimes that is the right answer. More often than people expect, it isn't. Here is how I tell the difference, what I look for on the roof, and why patching a roof that is done is the most expensive way to keep it.
New to how a roof is put together? Start with our visual guide, Understand Your Roof.
When a homeowner calls me about a leak, the first thing I ask isn't how big it is. It's: "Is your roof leaking? How many spots? And have you been chasing leaks for a while?"
That last part tells me almost everything. If one company patched a spot, then a new spot showed up six months later, and then another, that isn't bad luck. That's a roof whose underlayment is done. The leaks are the symptoms. The problem is the layer underneath, and no amount of spot patching fixes a whole layer.
Before I show up, I look up the address on Zillow to see when the house was built. In the Inland Empire, a lot of roofs are original to the house. If the home was built in 1992 and nobody has replaced the roof, that roof is over 30 years old, and that changes the conversation before I've set foot on the property.
Once I'm on the roof, two things tell me right away what I'm dealing with.
The first is what I see: shiny shingles or cracked tile. Shingles are covered in granules, the sandpaper-like coating that protects them from the sun. A healthy shingle looks textured and matte. When the granules wear away, the shingle starts to look shiny, and once the sun is hitting what the granules used to protect, the clock has already run out. If you're sweeping granules out of the gutters or off the patio, it's the same story. More in Sweeping Granules Off Your Yard?.
The second is what I feel: the crunch. A healthy shingle takes my weight without complaining. Old, dried out shingles crunch underfoot, and you can feel the granules sliding away as you step.
"When shingles are old and dried out, they crunch underfoot. You can feel the granules sliding away as you step. Once you've heard and felt that, you know immediately what you're standing on."
On a tile roof, a few cracked or slipped tiles are worth fixing, but the bigger question is what's under them. The tile sheds most of the water. The underlayment is what keeps it out of the house, and in my experience the tile usually outlasts the underlayment under it. If the house is 25 years old, the tile looks fine, and the roof has never had work done, I start by assuming the underlayment is due.
That's the good news about tile: when the tile is still good, you usually don't have to buy new tile. A tile lift and relay takes the tile up, replaces the underlayment and the metal, and sets the same tile back. Same look, new layer underneath. When the tile itself is done, or nobody makes it anymore, it's a tile replacement with new tile. The full walk-through, with the signs for each, is in our guide Tile Roof: Repair or Replace?.
A repair is the right call when the damage is truly isolated: a few shingles lost in a wind, one failed pipe boot, flashing that pulled away from a wall, a handful of cracked tiles. If the rest of the roof is in good shape, the underlayment is sound and the shingles still have life in them, a good repair buys real years. When that's true, I'll tell you.
The key word is isolated. One problem on a healthy roof is a repair. Several problems, or one problem on a roof that's clearly in decline, is a different conversation.
There's a middle ground too: a full facet replacement. A facet is one plane of the roof, between a ridge and an edge or a valley. If one facet is in bad shape and the rest of the roof is decent, we can redo that whole plane instead of patching it. It costs more than a patch and less than a full replacement, and it actually fixes the problem on that plane.
Here's the scenario I see more than any other. A homeowner has been dealing with leaks for a few years. They've had it patched once or twice. Every hard rain, something new shows up. They call hoping I can fix the latest spot.
When leaks show up in different places over time, these aren't separate failures. The underlayment is wearing out, and water is finding its way through wherever it can. Fixing the latest leak doesn't stop the next one from showing up 20 feet away. It's also why a lot of repairs don't hold.
At that point the financially smarter move is a replacement, even though the check is bigger. You stop paying for repairs, you stop chasing water through the ceiling, and you get a new roof with a manufacturer warranty and our workmanship warranty behind it.
A real replacement isn't new shingles on top. On a shingle roof it's a full tear-off down to the deck. We check the wood, replace the boards that are bad, and put down new underlayment, new flashings and new shingles. We pull the permit under our license and the city inspects the work. On tile it's a lift and relay or new tile, and on a flat roof it's a new system, most often torch-down modified bitumen with a white cap sheet.
That's four kinds of roofs, and we do all four: asphalt shingle roofs, tile replacement with new tile, tile lift and relay, and flat roofs.
It's one of the most common questions I get from homeowners trying to manage cost. We don't install overlays. Every shingle job we do is a full tear-off.
New shingles over an old layer age faster than they would on a clean deck. The manufacturers' system warranties require a tear-off, and the basic material warranty usually survives an overlay but excludes problems caused by the layer underneath, which is the whole risk. And an overlay hides the deck. We find soft spots and rot on tear-offs all the time. Cover them up and they keep getting worse.
The whole conversation, with the two-layer rule, is in Roof Overlay vs. Tear-Off. If cost is why you're asking, let us look at the roof and talk through your options.
I'm usually the bearer of bad news. Most people call me hoping for a repair quote, and I have to explain why a replacement is the right move. That's not a sales pitch. It's the same answer I'd give a family member, and when a repair is enough, I'll tell you that too.
If your roof is over 20 years old, if you've had leaks in more than one spot, or if your shingles look shiny or crunch underfoot, get it looked at before you spend another dollar on patches. Roofs don't get replaced in the rain, so the dry months are the time to decide. If budget is what keeps you patching, ask us about financing.
One problem on a healthy roof is a repair. A roof full of problems is a replacement, whether you pay for it all at once or in patches.
Free in-home estimate, in writing. We walk the roof and tell you straight whether it's a repair, a replacement, or somewhere in between. Asphalt shingle roofs, tile replacement with new tile, tile lift and relay, and flat roofs across the Inland Empire.
(909) 819-8394