Roof Inspections and Written Reports, Liverpool and Fairfield

Who asks for a roof inspection

Four kinds of calls come in for this, and they want slightly different things.

Homeowners with a symptom. A stain, a drip, grit in the gutters, or a roof that simply looks tired from the street. You want to know what is wrong and what it will cost.

Buyers. You are about to commit to a house in Casula or Canley Heights and the roof looks original. A building inspection may note the roof in general terms. You want someone who will get onto it and say what condition the tiles and the ridge lines are actually in.

Insurance claims. Damage after a storm, and an insurer who wants evidence rather than a description.

Landlords and agents. Condition records before a tenancy, or a decision about whether to repair or re-roof before re-letting.

Call (02) 4601 3500 and tell us which one you are, so we bring the right thing.

What we check

On the roof

• Tile condition: cracks, chips, flaking, crazing, movement under foot
• Ridge and hip bedding and pointing, measured by the metre
• Valleys: rust, debris, fall, and whether the tiles are cut and laid correctly
• Flashings at walls, chimneys, skylights and vents
• Every junction where an added roof meets the original one
• Sheet roofing: fixings, laps, swarf, corrosion and pitch
• Gutters, box gutters, downpipes and outlets
• Solar mounts, aerials and air conditioning penetrations

In the roof space

• Daylight, water tracks and active drips
• Sarking: present, absent, torn or sagging
• Battens and rafters for rot and movement
• Insulation that is wet, flattened or displaced
• Ventilation, and whether the space is cooking in summer

From the ground

• Roof line for sag or movement
• Fascia and barge timber
• Where stormwater actually discharges
• Overhanging trees and the debris they drop

Getting onto a roof safely

Some roofs we walk. Others we do not, and that is a judgement we make rather than a convenience.

Old terracotta goes brittle. Fifty-year-old concrete tiles break under a boot. A steep two-storey needs proper anchors and harnessing. Where walking the roof would damage it or put someone at risk, we fly a drone over it and work from high-resolution images instead.

Either way you get the photographs. You should be able to see the fault on a screen rather than take a stranger's word for what is up there.

What you get

A plain-English write-up with:

• Dated photographs of each fault, with a note on what you are looking at
• The condition of each part of the roof, section by section
• What needs doing now, what can wait, and what is fine
• An itemised price for the work we recommend
• Anything we could not inspect, and why

No jargon that hides a hole in the information. If we could not get into the roof space because the manhole was sealed, the report says so.

Hail and storm claims

After a storm, two things make the difference to a claim: evidence that is dated, and a scope that is specific. We photograph the damage before any make-safe work, describe what failed, and price the repair line by line.

We cannot decide a claim and we do not promise an outcome. We can make sure the insurer has the detail they need. If water is coming in now, start with storm and emergency roof repairs and the documentation follows.

Before you buy

A roof is one of the most expensive things on a house to get wrong. The post-war estates across Liverpool and Fairfield are full of roofs that look acceptable from the footpath and are two years from a full re-roof.

What a pre-purchase roof check tells you:

• Whether the tiles have life left or are breaking down
• Whether the ridge and hip pointing is original
• Whether there is sarking, which most houses from the 1950s and 60s never had
• Whether later additions were flashed in correctly or sealed with silicone
• What the next five years of roof spending is likely to look like

That is a number you can use in a negotiation.

After the inspection

If the answer is a repair, see roof repairs. If the tiles are sound but the mortar has gone, see roof restoration. If the tiles themselves have had it, see roof replacement.

We inspect roofs across Prairiewood, St Johns Park, Warwick Farm, Hinchinbrook and every other suburb on the service areas page.

Call (02) 4601 3500 or book an inspection.