Emergency Roof Repair in Frog Hollow

Usually, where there is daylight left and the wind allows. What we will not do is pretend a permanent repair can be specified in the dark in the wet. We contain it, photograph what we find, and price the real work when the roof is dry.

If water is near a light fitting or a socket, switch that circuit off at the board first. Then clear what you can from underneath and get a container under the drip. A ceiling holding water should be relieved deliberately at its lowest point over a bucket rather than left to come down. And note whether it is raining -- if it is not, say so, because that changes everything.

That is an ice dam, and it is the opposite of a rain leak. Heat escaping into the roof space melts snow on the upper roof; the meltwater refreezes at the cold eaves and dams; water then backs up behind it and goes in above the line the covering sheds from. It shows up during a thaw. The lasting fix is insulation and ventilation, not shingles.

Usually not. New Jersey treats repair or replacement of an existing roof covering on a DETACHED one- or two-family dwelling as ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7 -- no permit, no notice, no inspection. Attached houses, buildings with three or more units and anything structural are the exceptions, and we tell you which you are at the survey.

Look away from the failure. If the covering across the rest of the slope still lies flat, still holds its granules and is not brittle, the roof has life in it and the repair is the right job. If the slope is generally spent, a repair is money spent twice. Then check the layer count: two coverings is the practical ceiling.