Before you go to sell your home, it’s not uncommon to fix up little problems you’ve been putting off, and that usually includes issues on the roof. But if you wait until then to get your roof up to par, it may end up costing you a lot more than you think.
Recently, I had a homeowner call us to come to check out a leak on his roof. He wanted to get it fixed so he could put his home on the market. I got up on his roof and saw that the installer hadn’t counter-flashed the roof to the dormer; there was black mastic and caulking everywhere.
I said, “Which leak are you referring to? The one here, or here or over there?”
Because he put it off for so long, the leak had gotten much worse.
If homeowners only knew what leaving a leak on the roof could do, the wet rot and fungus that gets into the structure, they would not wait to call us.
We had to go into this guy’s roof and take apart his entire dormer, take all the siding and roofing off, find the seepage, fix the wet rot, and put it all back together.
It was a $6,800 repair. If he would have called us the first time he noticed the leaking, it would have been a $1,500 fix.
I know real estate prompts you to address things you’ve let go of, but let the rest of us learn from this example. With regular maintenance and prompt solutions, we can avoid costly disasters.