Emergency Roof Repair Near Me in Madison, WI

Most emergency calls trace back to a few things: a lifted or missing shingle, flashing pulled away from a chimney or sidewall, or a rubber pipe boot that has split with age. We find where the water actually gets in, which is often several feet uphill of the stain on your ceiling. Then we dry in the damage with underlayment and fastened sheeting, and make the permanent repair with materials that match what is already on the roof.

A house built around 1979, the median year for homes here, may be on its second or third roof, and each layer hides what is under it. We walk the surface, check every penetration and valley, and look at the decking from the attic for dark staining, soft spots and daylight. With about 36 inches of snow a year, we pay close attention to the eaves, where ice can back water up under shingles.

Sometimes patching just delays the inevitable. Curling tabs, granules collecting in the gutters, and soft decking in more than one spot usually mean the roof has run its course. A replacement means tearing off to the deck and cutting out rotted sheathing. Then comes ice and water shield along the eaves and valleys, synthetic underlayment, new drip edge and flashing, and architectural shingles or standing seam metal on top. We handle the permit.

Good installation is mostly details nobody sees from the street. We nail to the manufacturer's pattern, with six nails per shingle where the pitch calls for it. Step flashing goes in piece by piece at every wall, never as one bent strip. Intake and exhaust vents are balanced so the attic breathes, which keeps the deck dry. On flat and low-slope sections we install a membrane instead of shingles, because shingles are not built to shed standing water.

The first thing we look for is where the water is actually getting in, which is rarely right above the stain on the ceiling. We go into the attic with a light and trace the drip back along the rafters. Then we walk the roof and check the flashing at chimneys, vents, skylights and valleys. If the roof is still open to weather, a tarp goes down and gets fastened to battens before anything else.

You get the scope on paper before any work starts: what failed, what comes off, what goes back on, and which materials we use. If the damage runs deeper than one section, the estimate says so plainly and separates the urgent repair from what can wait. Nothing gets added once the roof is open without us showing you the problem and writing it up first. You decide what goes ahead.

Shingles come off across the damaged area and a margin past it, down to bare decking, so we can see what the water did underneath. If an older layer sits under the top one, both come off in the repair zone. Nailing new shingles over a wet layer just hides the next leak. Old nails get pulled rather than hammered flat, and the tear-off lands on tarps, not in your flower beds.

Wet decking tells on itself. Plywood delaminates, OSB swells at the edges and goes soft underfoot. We cut out every sheet that fails, back to the nearest rafters, and replace it with new sheathing of matching thickness so the new roof lies flat. Where a rafter or truss has been sitting wet, we probe it for rot and sister it with new lumber if it has lost strength. Structural problems get shown to you before they get covered.

Ice and water shield goes down first at the eaves, in the valleys and around every penetration, because those are the spots where water backs up under shingles. The rest of the deck gets synthetic underlayment, lapped and fastened to the manufacturer's pattern. Where new underlayment meets old, we tuck it under the existing layer. Water running downhill should always cross a lap from above, never run into one.

New shingles are matched to the existing roof as closely as the manufacturer still allows, in color and profile, so the repair does not read as a patch from the street. Each one gets its full nail count, placed in the nailing strip. Step flashing goes in piece by piece along sidewalls, and counter flashing is cut into the chimney mortar rather than caulked to the surface. Metal and flat roofs get repaired with the same system already there.

Before we call it done, we walk the whole roof, not only the section we touched. Flashing has to be sealed and lapped the right way. No nail heads can be exposed. Vents and pipe boots need to sit tight. After that we go back into the attic, where the leak started, and look at the underside of the repair. When conditions allow, we run a hose over the area and watch for water from inside.

Any roofing job scatters nails, so we run a magnetic sweeper across the lawn, driveway, beds and walkway, then go over it a second time. Gutters get cleared of grit and shingle scraps, since loose granules clog downspouts. Old materials leave the property with us. The yard should be safe to walk barefoot afterward, and we check with you that the site is back the way it was before we pack up.