Roof Inspection
Three times a Tuscaloosa roof should get walked: before you buy the house, before spring storm season, and any time a tenant mentions a stain. A roof inspection is 45 to 90 minutes on the roof and in the attic, a written photo report the same day, and a straight answer on what will fail next and when.
No leak yet? That is the point. The $200 boot replacement found in February is the $1,500 decking repair avoided in May.
Who needs an inspection
Buyers under contract, because the home inspector looked at the roof from a ladder and wrote probable remaining life, which is not a number. Landlords and property managers with student rentals around University Boulevard and the Alberta side, who would rather schedule a $300 repair in summer than take a 2 am leak text in September. Owners of 2011 to 2013 tornado-rebuild roofs, which are at the 13-to-15-year age where boots and sealant go. Anyone whose roof has been through a hail event and wants to know whether the damage is real before deciding about a claim. And sellers who want to fix the small stuff before the buyer's inspector finds it.
Insurance renewals are an increasing reason too. Several carriers in Alabama now ask for roof age and condition on older houses, and a dated photo report with the boots and flashing in good order has kept more than one Tuscaloosa policy from being non-renewed.
The common thread is that all of these people want a number and a photo, not a sales visit. The report is built to be handed to someone else: an agent, an owner, an adjuster, a tenant, a buyer.
What we check on a Tuscaloosa roof
Every pipe boot, for the split at the top of the collar that summer heat causes.
Every vent flange, ridge vent and gable vent for lifted nails and dried sealant.
Chimney step flashing, counterflashing, crown and cap, which is where the older houses in Forest Lake and The Downs leak.
Valleys for debris, exposed nails, and shingles cut too tight to the center.
Shingle condition: seal strip adhesion, granule loss, creasing from wind, hail bruising counted per test square.
Decking from the attic: water trails, soft spots, daylight at the eaves, and whether the ventilation actually works.
Soffit, fascia, drip edge and gutters, because that is where rot starts on a roof that never leaked.
Skylights, satellite mounts, solar brackets and anything else somebody added after the roof went on, because those are leaks that nobody planned for.
Gutters and downspouts for pitch, blockage and whether they actually carry water away from the foundation, since an overflowing gutter is the start of most fascia rot.
The written photo report
By that evening you have a PDF with a photo of every problem, where it is on the roof, how urgent it is on a three-step scale, and a price to fix it. Items that are fine are listed as fine, so a buyer or an owner can see what was checked. The report is written for a person who has never been on a roof, and it is accepted by Tuscaloosa-area agents, lenders and adjusters as documentation of condition.
We also include a plain-English maintenance note: what to watch for from the yard, when the boots are likely due, and which season to schedule the next look. For a buyer, that section becomes the first year's to-do list. For a landlord, it goes in the property file next to the lease.
On roofs where we find an active leak during the inspection, the report doubles as the leak detection report, and the inspection fee covers it.
Pre-purchase and landlord schedules
For buyers we work inside your inspection window, usually within 2 business days of the request, and we will meet your agent at the house if you want to walk it together.
For landlords and managers we recommend one walk a year in late January or February, before the spring season, with a second look after any hail or wind event. Portfolios of five or more properties get a per-roof file so each year's report compares to the last one, and so a tenant's leak call starts with history instead of a blank slate. We bill the management company, schedule access with the tenant directly, and send the report to whoever approves work.
Sellers are the third schedule. A pre-listing walk in the week before photos lets you fix the split boot and the lifted ridge vent for a few hundred dollars instead of negotiating them off the price at closing, and the clean report goes in the disclosure packet.
Post-storm checks are scheduled in the two weeks after a hail or wind event. If you had hail, do not wait on the neighbor's roofer to knock; a dated report from a company that does not sell replacements is the one an adjuster trusts.
Inspection pricing
Single-story house with attic access: $125. Two-story, steep, or no attic access: $175. Portfolio pricing for five or more roofs on one schedule: $95 each. The inspection fee is credited toward any repair over $500 done within 60 days. If we find nothing, you get a report that says so, which is worth having when you sell.
There is no upsell built into the walk. The report lists what is wrong with a price next to it, and what is fine with nothing next to it. You can hand it to any roofer in Tuscaloosa and the numbers will stand.
Walk it before the storm does
Send the address and what prompted the request: a purchase, a tenant, a hail event, or just the calendar. We will book the walk and email the report that evening.