Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
Call a roofing company first, then deal with water getting inside. A roofer gets there faster and works more safely than you can, and carries the materials for stopping water temporarily. Stay off a tall or steep roof in a storm. Everything after that, including insurance and who does the permanent repair, can wait a few days.
Call a roofer first, then contain the water getting inside your house.
A roofing crew arrives with the materials to stop water and can work safely on a roof you should not be on.
Take photos from the ground today, before anything gets cleaned up.
After a Utah storm the only truly urgent thing is water coming into the house. Everything else is a decision you are allowed to make slowly.
Mattie Tueller, Master Roofing
Call a roofing company first. That is the whole answer for the first hour. A roofing crew can get to the problem faster and more safely than you can, and they carry what is needed to stop water temporarily. At Master Roofing that material rides in the estimators' and production crews' trucks, spread across the service area, instead of sitting at the shop.
While you wait, deal with water that is getting inside. Move furniture and anything that cannot be replaced. Put a container under an active drip. Pull back rugs. If a ceiling is sagging or holding water, stay out from under it. Treat that room as closed until someone looks at it.
Storm damage feels like an emergency because it arrives all at once. Most of it is not. Water entering the house is the part that gets worse by the hour. Almost everything else keeps until daylight.
Tarping is the fallback when no roofing company can reach you, and it is worth understanding before you try it. The goal is not to waterproof the roof. The goal is to limit damage until someone can do the real repair. Good enough is genuinely good enough here.
Water runs downhill. A tarp laid flat over a hole does very little. Water coming down off the shingles above just runs under the tarp and into the same hole.
You have two ways to solve that. Tuck the top edge of the tarp under the row of shingles above the damage. Water then runs off those shingles and lands on top of the tarp. Or run the tarp all the way up and over the ridge.
Put as many nails as you can around the whole perimeter of the tarp. A tarp that blows off in the next gust did nothing at all. Do not try to protect the tarp. A tarp costs far less than letting your house fill with water.
Ask whether water is entering the house, or can before you get a roofer out. Active water is urgent. Damage you can see but that is not letting water in is serious without being urgent. The difference decides how fast you have to move and how much pressure you should accept from anyone.
Whether that visible damage is really storm damage is a separate question, answered in how to know if hail or wind actually damaged your roof. Work out which list you are on before you let anyone rush the timeline.
Because storms are the whole business model for a certain kind of roofing company. They follow weather across the country. The speed is not a sign that your roof is in trouble. It is a sign that your zip code came up on a map.
The person on your step often has no local address, no local history in Utah. No particular reason to be here next year.
The pressure exists because a homeowner who has just been frightened signs things she would not sign a week later. That is the entire advantage, and waiting removes it at no cost to you. A real roofing company will still take your call on Thursday.
Master Roofing does move people up the schedule for genuine emergencies. So urgency itself is not the tell. Being asked to sign during the first conversation is. The full field guide, including the pitch to expect and what to say, is in how to protect yourself from storm-chaser roofers.
Photographs and a short written record, both taken today. Storm conditions change fast, neighbors clean up. The evidence of what happened starts disappearing within a day or two. None of this requires going on the roof. All of it makes the conversation with a roofer or an adjuster shorter and more accurate.
Whether that record turns into an insurance claim is its own decision, covered in whether to file a claim for storm damage or pay out of pocket. Having the photographs does not commit you to filing.
Master Roofing has been through most of the severe weather Utah has produced in the last decade. That includes a wind event in Bountiful that took sheathing off houses. The pattern after every one of them is the same. The roofs that fail worst are usually not the ones that took the hardest hit. They are the ones that were not put on right. The storm is just what finally found it.
Here is the part homeowners get backwards. People think the brave move is getting up there with a tarp. On a tall or steep roof in a storm, that is the worst decision available. Letting the damage happen and letting your homeowners insurance pay for it is a better outcome than a hospital stay. That trade is not close.
Calling a roofer really is the first call, not the last one. Our estimators and production guys drive around with the emergency materials in their trucks, spread across the service area rather than sitting at the shop. That is deliberate. It is the difference between a crew reaching your house in the weather and a crew reaching it after.
I will be fair to the people knocking on doors this week. Some of them do competent work, and moving fast after a storm is not by itself dishonest. But the pressure is real and it is aimed at you. Handle the water tonight. Take your photographs. Then take the week you need.
This article is general information about Utah roofs, not an assessment of yours. Every roof is different, and no article can tell you what is actually happening on your specific house. Have a licensed roofing contractor look at it in person before you act on anything here.
<p>Call a roofing company for an emergency tarp before doing it yourself. Most will come out for that, and they can work safely on a surface you should not be on. If nobody can reach you and water is coming in, the tarp has to be installed so water cannot run under it. Tuck the top edge beneath the row of shingles above the damage, or carry the tarp up and over the ridge. Then nail the perimeter heavily so it survives the next gust. Never do any of this on a tall or steep roof.</p>
Policies set their own deadlines and they vary. So read yours or call your insurer and ask rather than guessing at it. What matters more is that the damage is documented from the day it happened. Photographs taken right away protect you regardless of when you end up filing. Taking them does not commit you to making a claim at all.
Only if nothing is getting in. Exposed decking or a compromised area will take on water through every snow and thaw between now and then. A Utah winter turns a contained problem into a structural one. Get it looked at now, then decide on timing with real information in front of you. An assessment is not the same thing as committing to the work.
No. A single bare patch on an otherwise sound roof is often a repair rather than a replacement. What matters is whether the loss is isolated or part of a pattern. How old the roof is, because shingle wind warranties often end around fifteen years. That question is worked through in detail in the node on shingles blowing off in the wind.
Usually yes, and it is one of the most useful places you can look. Use a flashlight, stay on the framing rather than the insulation. Look for daylight, wet decking, or dripping nails. Come straight back down if you see a sagging area or standing water on the ceiling below. Looking into the attic is very different from climbing onto the roof.
We're here to see what's going on with your roof. A real assessment starts with your history and your attic, not a number from the driveway. You'll get a straight answer about what's up there, what it needs, and what it costs. Sometimes the honest answer is: your roof looks great.