Is Your Roof Ready For Winter? A New England Checklist (And What To Do If It Leaks In January)

The Ground-Level Checklist (Ten Minutes, No Ladder)

Stand across the street with binoculars if you have them, then walk the perimeter, then poke your head into the attic. You're looking for:

• Shingles that are curling at the edges, cracked, or missing. A few lifted tabs after a windstorm are a repair; curling across a whole slope means the roof is near the end of its life.
• Granules collecting in the gutters or at the downspout outlet. Some grit is normal; handfuls of it means the shingles are wearing through.
• Flashing around the chimney, plumbing vents, and skylights. Rust, lifted edges, or caulk that has cracked and pulled away. Flashing is where most leaks start.
• Valleys where two roof planes meet, clear of leaves and debris. Water and ice concentrate there.
• Gutters clean, attached tight, and draining away from the house. A clogged gutter is the foundation for an ice dam.
• Soffit vents under the eaves, open and not painted over or stuffed with insulation.
• Attic: daylight through the roof deck, water stains on the underside of the sheathing, rusty or frosty nail tips, and insulation depth. If you can see the tops of the ceiling joists, there isn't enough.
• Sag in the roofline. A dip between rafters means the decking has softened; a sag along the ridge is structural. Either one gets looked at before snow adds weight to it.

Anything on that list you're not sure about, our fall inspection is free. We look at the same things from the roof and the attic, and you get a plain answer about whether it's fine for winter, needs a repair, or is a replacement conversation for spring.

If Your Roof Leaks In January

It happens, and the order of operations matters.

• Contain it. A bucket under the drip, plastic over anything below it, and a small hole poked in a sagging bulge of ceiling so the water drains into the bucket instead of spreading across the drywall.
• Stay off the roof. A snow-covered roof is not a place for anyone without a harness. Nothing you could do up there is worth the fall.
• Photograph everything. The stain, the drip, the ice on the eave outside, the date. Your insurance company will want it, and so will we.
• Call. We hold a 48-hour response on repair calls through the winter. If the cause is an ice dam, we clear it with low-pressure steam, which melts the ice off without damaging the shingles. If the cause is wind damage or flashing, we make it watertight the same visit.
• Expect a two-step fix. Some winter repairs are permanent on the day. Others get a proper temporary patch, because shingles need warmth to seal and a full section can't be reworked at ten degrees. The permanent repair follows on the first mild stretch, and the leak stays stopped in between.

Repairs run all winter. Full replacements get harder after late November because shingles need warmth to seal, so if the fall inspection says the roof is done, the right schedule is a permanent patch now and the new roof in spring.

Does Insurance Cover It?

Generally, homeowners insurance covers sudden damage: a tree limb, wind that lifts shingles, an ice dam leak that ruins a ceiling. It generally doesn't cover a roof that failed because it was old or wasn't maintained, and some policies pay less on roofs past a certain age. Every policy is different, so call your agent early, send the photos, and ask what's covered before any permanent work starts. We provide the written assessment and photos adjusters ask for.

Repair Or Replace Before Winter?

If the inspection finds a few lifted shingles or a bad chimney flashing, that's a repair, and a fall repair is cheap insurance against a January leak. If more than about a quarter of the roof is damaged, or it's past twenty years, replacement is usually the better money; our guide to the 25% roofing rule explains how to make that call. Most asphalt roofs in Tewksbury run about $9,000 to $12,000, the instant roof quote gives you a real number in minutes, and financing starts at 0% for 12 months.