Roof Repair in Scottsdale, AZ

Where Scottsdale roof leaks usually start

On a tile roof, the tile sheds most of the rain. The layer underneath is what keeps your house dry, and in Arizona that layer wears out first. As Mikel Wallesen puts it, "The old 30 lb felt that we took off of the roof dries out over a period of time, especially in the valleys." That's why so many leaks we trace end up in a valley. Here's why old felt fails where the water runs heaviest.

The spots we check first on a leak call:

• Valleys, where dried felt cracks under the heaviest water flow.
• Cracked or slipped tile after a wind storm or hail.
• Ridge and hip lines, where gusts push rain up under the caps.
• Vents, skylights and chimneys. A vent placed at the bottom of a valley takes on far more water than it should. We've moved one for exactly that reason.
• Flat sections with spray foam, where the coating has worn thin and the sun is reaching the foam.
• Shingle laps that never sat flat. Mikel explains how that happens: "if this isn't laid down properly or flat, you have buckling in the roof. These will crack and dry out." More in how a small roofing mistake turns into a leak.

Repair or replace: how we decide

"Most people think you have to replace a whole roof," Mikel says, "but in terms of the tile, depending on the underlayment, some people can only afford a partial re-roof." So we lift tile around the leak and look at what's underneath before anyone talks about a full job.

If the underlayment is still flexible and the damage sits in one area, it's a repair. When the felt cracks in your hand everywhere we look, patching one spot just sends the water to the next weak spot, and we'll say so. At that point the honest answer is an underlayment replacement on your Scottsdale tile roof, and you decide when. Any soft plywood we uncover gets replaced before anything goes back on top. Mikel walks through that call in his post on partial re-roofs.

Fixing tile without a patchwork look

The first question on a tile repair is whether your tile is still being made. If it is, we buy matching pieces. If it isn't, every tile we lift gets handled carefully so it can go back up. Mikel's crews look at the whole roof before they set replacements, "to see where the new tile can go on these roofs so that it doesn't stand out when people are looking at that tile."

When a repair takes us to the ridge, the caps go back in mastic and the weather blocker under the ridge gets replaced, so the next monsoon gust doesn't undo the work. Where a chimney traps debris on its uphill side, a cricket behind the chimney splits the water around it.

Spray foam and flat roof repairs

Foam is a great roof for flat and low-slope sections of Scottsdale homes, but it needs its coating. In Mikel's words, "the spray foam is not a UV protectant." Once the coating wears through, the sun breaks down the foam and water follows. We see it most around drains that hold water, where HVAC techs have walked, and on coatings that were never renewed.

The repair is cutting out the damaged foam, filling it with new foam, and coating it again, then recoating the surrounding area if the old coating is worn. See spray foam roofing in Scottsdale for how a full foam roof is built.

After a monsoon or hail storm

You don't need to climb up to know something's wrong. From the ground, look for broken tile pieces in the yard or on the patio, dents on metal vents and flashing, piles of shingle granules at the downspouts, and new stains on ceilings or around skylights. Please don't walk a tile roof yourself. Tile cracks under a misplaced step, and a fall isn't worth it.

Call us and we'll come out, photograph what we find and walk you through it. If we spot damage that isn't on the roof, like a failing stair or deck coating, we'll tell you about that too. Here's why we point out damage beyond the roof.

What a repair visit looks like

1. An inspection at no charge, with photos of every problem we find.
2. A written scope that says what's damaged, what caused it and what we'll do.
3. The repair itself. If tile has to come off, "we try to never leave a customer's house roof exposed overnight," as Mikel says. What we open, we close up the same day.

What a repair costs depends on what we find under the surface, so we price it after the inspection rather than guess. For replacement ranges, see our pricing page, or start with the instant estimator.

Big Red Roofing is family-owned and licensed under AZ ROC #276008. For a Scottsdale roof repair inspection, phone the office at (602) 799-6837. For bigger jobs, see Scottsdale tile roofing, Scottsdale shingle roofing and commercial roofing in Scottsdale.