Roof inspection
On this housing an inspection is worth more than it looks, because half of what decides the roof is not on the roof. The attic tells you whether the next covering will last fifteen years or twenty-five.
When it pays here
Before buying, above all, and especially a two- or three-family. The roof is one of the largest numbers in the transaction, and on a building with tenants it comes with a condition nobody mentions at the viewing: the heat in the top flat is not controlled by the owner.
After a winter that left ice at the eaves or a stain on a ceiling in February. That damage is at the edge and under the covering, which is precisely where nobody looks from the ground.
And before deciding on a house that has been converted. Every stair, dormer and second bathroom added over the years put something new through a roof that was originally plain.
What a real inspection covers
It starts in the attic, because on old framing the deck and the rafters tell the truth about both water and weight. Spaced boards, previous repairs, staining, daylight at the ridge, and whether the insulation has buried the intake at the eave.
Then the roof itself: the field, the valleys (particularly any created by a later dormer), the chimney, the penetrations, and the edge. On a building with two households, count the penetrations; there are usually more than the owner expects.
And the shallow rear section behind the steep front, which exists on a great many of these houses and is the part that actually fails.
What it costs and what it saves
It costs a small fraction of what it informs, and it moves decisions many times its size. Buyers use it to negotiate. Owners use it to schedule work on their own calendar rather than the roof’s. And on a building with tenants it frequently shows that the money belongs in the attic rather than on the roof.
Quick answers
- The roof looks fine from the street. Is there anything to see?
- Usually yes, and mostly indoors. The intake at the eave, the air sealing above the top ceiling and the condition of the deck are all invisible from the ground and all decide the outcome.
- I have tenants upstairs. Does that change the inspection?
- It changes what matters. On a building where the top floor is heated by someone else, how heat reaches the roof space is the finding worth paying for.
- Is a drone inspection enough?
- It is a good start and a poor finish. The attic and the eave detail tell the parts of the story a lens cannot reach.
- Should I inspect before making an offer, or after?
- Before, if the seller allows it. On a multi-family the roof and the attic together often move the number more than anything else found that day.
- What kind of finding actually fails an inspection here?
- Intake buried under insulation at the eave, ice damage at the deck edge, flashing fastened to brick rather than let into the joint, and a shallow rear section with visible ponding or open seams. On a converted multi-family, a dormer valley that was never properly flashed shows up more often than a worn field does.
- Why do I keep getting calls about roof inspections?
- Those calls are typically generated from an address list rather than from anything specific to your building, and they tend to increase after a rough winter. A real inspection is one you arrange yourself, ends with a written report and photographs, and answers a question you actually had, not a pitch that starts on the doorstep.
- 1 The ridge. One ridge over two households, and one of them pays to replace it.
- 2 The field. The part everyone looks at, and rarely the part that actually failed.
- 3 Valleys. Most of them were cut in later, when the house was divided into flats.
- 4 The chimney. Often two of them, and often neither one carries anything any more.
- 5 Penetrations. Two kitchens and two bathrooms mean twice the holes on the same roof.
- 6 The overhang. Where heat from a flat you do not control comes back down as ice.