Make-safe first: storm and emergency roof repairs

If water is coming in now

Ring (02) 4703 5000. Make-safe is the priority and it is a different job from the repair: the aim of the first visit is to stop water entering the building, not to finish the roof.

While you wait: isolate power to any circuit near wet plaster, move furniture and electronics out from underneath, and get a container under the drip. If the ceiling sheet is bagging with trapped water, one small hole at the lowest point will drain it in a controlled place rather than letting the whole sheet let go. Do not get on the roof yourself — a wet, steep, mossy mountains pitch is one of the easier ways to end up in hospital.

What make-safe means

• Get up safely, with proper anchorage and edge protection.
• Find and cover the opening with mechanically fixed temporary membrane or sheeting, battened down with secured edges so wind cannot lift it.
• Clear the immediate debris that is holding water on the roof or blocking a gutter or valley.
• Check the valleys and gutters, because a blocked valley in continuing rain will keep flooding the roof even after the hole is covered.
• Photograph everything, and give you the photographs.

That is a holding position. It buys you a dry house while the weather settles and the permanent repair gets scoped.

What actually damages roofs on this ridge

The failure pattern here is different from the western plains, and it is worth knowing because it changes what you look for.

Branch strike. By far the most common. Mature eucalypts, saturated ground, and wind. A limb does not have to be large to break tiles, bend a valley iron or punch through sheeting, and Woodford has gums standing over 70 metres. Blocks backing onto national park at Winmalee, Faulconbridge and Mount Riverview see it most.

Wind lift. Westerly weather across an exposed ridge finds whatever is already loose: rocking ridge caps on failed pointing, old sheeting with tired fixings, barge and flashing edges. The roof does not fail where it is sound; it fails where it was already overdue.

Driven water. Persistent rain plus fog means roofs here stay wet for days rather than hours. Water that would run off a coastal roof has time to find its way through a cracked flashing or a lazy sheet lap. The leak appears in a storm, but the fault was there beforehand.

Falling debris and ember load during fire weather. Different hazard, same roofline. Blocked gutters and open roof details are the part of the building most worth having in order before a bad fire-weather day.

After make-safe comes the actual repair

Once the roof is dry enough to work on properly, the permanent fix gets scoped and quoted in writing. Depending on what the storm exposed, that might be:

• Tile, sheet, flashing or valley replacement — see roof repairs.
• Rebedding and repointing where caps have lifted — see roof restoration.
• Gutter, downpipe or fascia replacement — see gutter repair and replacement.
• A full re-roof where the damage has found a roof that was already at the end of its life — see roof replacement.

Storms tend to reveal rather than create. A roof that loses half a ridge line in one night usually had nothing holding that ridge line on.

Insurance claims

We document, we do not advocate. What that means in practice: we photograph the damage before and after make-safe, write up what we found and what caused it where it can be determined, and provide an itemised scope and quote in the form insurers normally want. If your insurer or assessor wants a standalone written report, a roof inspection and report covers that.

What we will not do is tell you your claim will be approved, or inflate a scope to suit a claim. The decision sits with your insurer.

Why getting here can take longer than you would like

Honest expectation setting. The settlements run in a single line along the Great Western Highway and the railway, so when the highway is affected there is no alternative route for much of the ridge. Fog can cut visibility to very little at altitude, driveways on steep blocks are often unsealed and slippery when wet, and after a widespread weather event every roofer on the mountains is working through a queue.

Which is why the earlier you ring, the better. (02) 4703 5000.

The unglamorous prevention

Most of the emergency work we do was preventable twelve months earlier. Clearing gutters and valleys before storm season, repointing a ridge that has started to crumble, and cutting back the limbs directly over your roof are three cheap things that prevent expensive nights. If you want it assessed before anything happens, the inspection and the written quote are free either way.

Work is carried out by established, licensed and insured roofing contractors working to NSW Fair Trading requirements, and completed repairs carry a written workmanship warranty.