Your roof is leaking in a storm. Here's what to do.
What to do in the first hour, what not to do, and what to have ready when the roofer gets there.
Water coming through a ceiling at night is one of the worst sounds a house can make. The good news is that the first hour is mostly about protecting the inside of the house, and none of it involves a ladder.
In the first few minutes
- Move furniture, electronics and anything you care about out from under the drip.
- Put a bucket or a bin under it, with a towel in the bottom to stop the splash.
- If the ceiling is bulging with water, keep people and pets out from under it. A bulge can let go all at once.
- If water is near light fittings or outlets, turn off the power to that part of the house at the breaker.
What not to do
Don't go up on the roof. A wet roof in the wind or the dark is how people get badly hurt, and a tarp that blows loose at 2 a.m. does more harm than good. Covering the roof is the roofer's job; keeping the room dry is yours.
Take photos
Photograph the ceiling, the wet floor and anything that got damaged, and, once it is safe and light, the roof from the ground. If a storm caused the damage, those photos are the start of an insurance claim, and they are much easier to take now than to reconstruct later.
Call a roofer
Our phone is answered 24 hours a day. An emergency repair is about making the roof watertight first; the proper repair comes once it is dry and safe to work.
When you call, it helps to know roughly where in the house the water is showing, when it started, and whether anything came off the roof. That is enough for us to know what we are walking into.