Roof Inspections in New Jersey: What We Check and Why

Which Roof Inspection Do You Need?

An inspection is only useful if it answers the question you actually have, and the question changes the inspection. Roughly, it comes down to five situations:

• After a storm: you need dated photo documentation of what the weather did, in a form an insurer will read. Start with hail damage roof inspection or storm damage roofing.
• Buying or selling: you need to know the remaining life of the roof and what it will cost to deal with, before the contract is signed or the listing goes up.
• An aging roof with no problems yet: you need a baseline, so the next inspection has something to be compared against.
• Chasing a leak: the inspection is really a diagnosis, and it starts in the attic. See roof leak repair.
• A chimney: the flashing, crown and cap are inspected as their own system. See chimney inspection.

To book one, go to our free roof inspection page.

What the Attic Shows That the Roof Doesn't

From the roof, shingles look like shingles. From the attic, you see what the weather has actually done to the structure. Dark or damp sheathing around a pipe or chimney means a slow leak the ceiling hasn't shown yet. Rusted nail tips poking through the deck mean warm, moist air is condensing under it, which points to ventilation, not shingles. Frost on the underside of the deck in winter says the same thing. Matted or stained insulation marks where water travelled. Daylight around a vent pipe, a chimney or where the roof meets a wall (anywhere other than a ridge or soffit vent) is an open path for water and for animals. A roof inspection that skips the attic is only looking at half the roof.

What New Jersey Weather Does Between Inspections

A roof in North Jersey goes through repeated freeze-thaw cycles every winter, which open small gaps at flashing and sealant lines and push water into them. Summer thunderstorms bring gusts that unseal and crease shingles, and sometimes hail that bruises the mat without leaving a hole. Nor'easters and the remnants of tropical storms do the same at a larger scale, and heavy snow followed by a thaw is when ice dams form at the eaves. None of this is visible from the driveway. It is the reason a roof that looked fine two years ago can need work now, and why an inspection after a major storm is worth more than one on a calendar date.

How to Read Your Inspection Report

Each finding in the written report has a photo, a location, and a severity. Our recommendation for each finding falls into one of three kinds, so you can see what is urgent and what isn't:

• Repair: a specific, localized problem, such as a failed pipe boot or lifted flashing, that should be fixed now before it lets water in or gets worse.
• Replace: the problem is the roof itself (widespread granule loss, brittle or cracking shingles, repeated leaks in different places) and patching would be money spent on a roof that is finished.
• Monitor: something worth recording but not worth paying to fix yet, with a note on what would change that, such as re-checking after the next major storm.

If the report says repair or replace, you get a separate written estimate.

When We Don't Walk a Roof

Sometimes the safest and most accurate inspection is one done without stepping on the roof. We don't walk a roof that is wet, icy or frosted, and we don't walk very steep pitches. Slate and tile are brittle, and a footstep can break the thing we are there to protect, so those roofs are inspected from the edges, from a ladder, and from the attic. You still get the photo-documented written report. If a roof can't be checked properly in one visit, we say so in the report instead of guessing.