Should I repair my roof or replace it?

If you’ve got a leak in your roof, you’ll need to be like Kenny Rogers: "know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em." Here’s a guide to help you make the right call.

Repair Small Items

Occasionally, roof leaks are obvious. For example, the rubber boots around the PVC sewage vent pipe deteriorate slowly in sunlight, or can shift out of place if bumped. Look up in the attic for any sunlight peeking through a gap.

Find Leaks with a Water Test

Most of the time, though, leaks are elusive. While lots of handymen swear they can find a leak just by peeking in your attic with a flashlight, there’s really only one sure-fire way to determine where a leak is coming from — a water test. It’s exactly what it sounds like: one repairman gets on the roof with a hose, and another stays inside and looks for leaks. It takes a while to check every area methodically, but it saves you the headache of replacing flashing when it was really the crumbling chimney bricks, or vice versa.

Replace When It's Old

It makes sense to replace a roof when it can no longer be repaired. Multiple repairs on a shingle roof end up costing you more money in the long-run, as each repair represents a problem spot. Furthermore, repairing a roof usually requires the manual manipulation of adjacent shingles. According to shingle manufacturers, this can’t be done on older, brittle shingles without causing more damage. If more than 2-3 shingles are damaged on a roof face, that whole face needs to be replaced (Source: GAF).

Replace When Insurance Will Pay For It

It also makes sense to replace your roof when you’ve had a sudden loss across the whole roof, due to hail or wind damage. You’ve already paid your insurance premiums, year after year. So if your roof is storm-damaged, you’d want to know about it, right? Sadly, most people don’t know they’ve got storm damage, since these seemingly-subtle damages are hard to see from the ground. A roofing expert can conduct a thorough inspection to determine if your whole roof qualifies for replacement through your insurer. If you’ve got an active leak, they can cover it with a tarp while the claim is processed.