roof inspection in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

Most of the roofs we open up around Sun Prairie are on houses from the same general era. The median home in this market was built in 1979, and a roof of that age has often been re-covered at least once. That matters because the second layer hides the first. We find asphalt shingles laid over older shingles, flashing that was bent to fit rather than replaced, and decking that nobody has seen since the original installation. Recent work has been a mix: full replacements, repairs around chimneys and vents, and flat sections over additions and porches.

A replacement starts with a tear-off down to bare decking, not a layover. We walk the deck, mark soft spots, and replace boards before anything goes back on. Ice and water membrane goes at the eaves and in the valleys, synthetic underlayment covers the rest, and every piece of flashing at walls, chimneys and pipes is new metal, not reused. Where the job needs a permit, we pull it through the City of Madison. Repairs run the same way on a smaller footprint: find the source of the water, open it up, fix what is under it.

The leaks we get called about rarely start in the middle of a slope. Water gets in at the edges and transitions: step flashing that stops short of the wall, a chimney counterflashing sealed with caulk instead of cut into the mortar, a plumbing boot with a cracked collar, a flat roof over a porch that drains to a low spot with nowhere to go. Shingles get blamed for damage that started somewhere else. By the time a stain shows on the ceiling, the decking under it has usually been wet for a while.

Doing it right costs time, mostly. It takes longer to tear off two layers than to nail over them, longer to bend new flashing than to smear sealant on the old, and longer to fix a rotten fascia board than to cover it. The return is a roof that performs as a roofing system instead of a collection of patches. Materials matter too, and we spec them for the job: architectural shingles on the steep sections, a membrane rated for the flat ones, metal where the pitch calls for it. Estimates are free. Call and ask.

A roof inspection tells you what your roof is doing right now, not what it might do someday. We walk the whole surface, check every penetration and every run of flashing, and look at the decking from the attic side, where water shows up first. The median home in this market was built in 1979, so a good share of the roofs we see are carrying their second or third covering. Layers hide things. We want to know what is under them before anyone talks about repair or replacement.

Our inspection starts at the ground with the gutters, the drip edge and the soffits, then moves onto the roof itself. We photograph what we find. Every lifted shingle, cracked pipe boot, rusted valley or soft spot gets a picture and a note, so you can see it yourself instead of taking our word for it. Flat sections and metal sections get the same attention as shingle. When we come down, we sit with you and go through the list one item at a time, in plain language.

Most roof damage does not announce itself. Water finds a gap in the flashing around a chimney, runs along a rafter, and shows up as a stain three rooms away from the leak. Sealant on a vent dries out and splits. Wind lifts a few tabs on the back slope where nobody looks. None of that is visible from the driveway. By the time a ceiling drips, the sheathing underneath may already be wet, and a repair that was small a year ago has become a structural question.

Getting a roof right takes more time on the roof than most people expect, and we would rather spend it than guess. We tell you when a roof is in good shape and needs nothing but a flashing repair and routine maintenance. We tell you when it is not. Homeowners in Sun Prairie, and out toward Middleton, call us because that answer is straight either way, and because the work that follows matches what we said it would be. Call for a free estimate and we will take a look.

We do not publish a price list, and neither should anyone else, because two houses on the same street rarely cost the same to roof. A median home in this area was built in 1979, which means plenty of roofs have been shingled more than once and the deck underneath has had decades to shift. What we can tell you is which parts of your own roof push the number up or down. Most of them you can see from the driveway or the attic hatch.

When bids come in, compare them line by line, not by the bottom number. Check that each one states the number of layers coming off, the price per sheet for deck replacement, the flashing being replaced rather than reused, the underlayment and membrane coverage, and who hauls the debris. A bid that leaves any of those blank is not lower. It is unfinished.