Roof inspection
An inspection is how a homeowner replaces guesswork with a list. On a region’s housing stock this varied: brick city homes with flat roofs, pre-war suburbs with hidden gutters, postwar ranches, and thirty-year-old plats across the river, what a good inspection looks for changes house by house.
What gets looked at
The covering first: shingle condition slope by slope, ridge caps, granule loss, the scatter pattern that separates thaw-cycle fatigue from an isolated defect. Then the details, because that is where roofs actually fail: every flashing joint, the counterflashing where the roof meets brick, the valleys and what has collected in them, the gutters, hung or built-in, and the penetrations: vents, stacks, skylights, the chimney and its mortar.
Then the side most inspections skip: the attic. Deck staining, damp insulation, daylight where there should be none, and whether the ventilation circuit, soffit intake to ridge exhaust, actually moves air. In this climate the attic tells you what July has been doing to the covering and what February will do to the eaves, before either shows on the outside.
When to book one
Three moments earn it. After the covering turns fifteen: from there, an occasional look changes surprises into plans. Around a purchase or sale: a roof finding at closing is a negotiation with a deadline, and an inspection beforehand is the cheap version of that conversation. And after anything changes indoors: a new stain, a musty attic, paint lifting at the top of a wall: on the pre-war stock especially, where box-gutter trouble shows inside the house before it shows anywhere else.
What comes back should be specific: what was found, where, how urgent, in writing, with photographs. A report that only says the roof is old is a sales visit. A report that names the three joints that need attention and the two that do not is a plan, and it makes every quote that follows comparable against the same list.
Quick answers
- How often should a St. Louis roof be inspected?
- Every few years while the covering is young, then more often past its fifteenth year, and after any winter that produced new stains indoors. Treed lots in the inner suburbs benefit from a look after the November drop.
- What does an inspection cover that I cannot see from the ground?
- The joints, flashing, counterflashing in the brick, valley condition, plus the attic side: deck staining, damp insulation, and whether ventilation actually moves air. Roofs fail at details, and the details are not visible from the driveway.
- What will actually fail a roof inspection here?
- Counterflashing pulled loose from a mortar joint, valley metal corroded under a winter of debris and refreeze, exposed nail heads, and granule loss heavy enough to leave a bald patch. On the older brick housing, a chimney flashed with sealant instead of reset masonry work is a common single item that keeps an otherwise sound roof from passing.
- Why do I keep getting calls about a free roof inspection?
- Those calls are usually placed from a purchased list of addresses, not from anyone who has actually been on your roof, and they tend to pick up after any rough stretch of weather moves through the region. A real inspection is one you book yourself, tied to a reason you can name, and it ends in a written report with photos rather than a pitch delivered on the porch.
- 1 Ridge caps. First to fatigue in a climate that swings hard in both directions.
- 2 The field. Thaw cycles work the covering harder than the calendar suggests.
- 3 Valleys. Litter holds water against the covering exactly where it should be leaving.
- 4 Flashing. The chimney, and where a lower roof runs into a brick wall.
- 5 The vent boot. A rubber part with a life measured in years, not decades.
- 6 Eaves and gutters. Refreezing and a plugged box gutter back water up under the edge.