Most of what a roof has to say, it says from the ground. Here are the seven things we would check on our own house without touching a ladder, what each one means, and the one trap that catches almost everyone who has bought a home in the last few years.
First, stay off the roof
Walking a roof damages it. Shingles lose granules underfoot, especially in summer heat, and older ones crack; cedar and slate are worse. Falls are the other reason. Everything below can be seen from the driveway, the far side of the street or the attic hatch, and anything that cannot, we photograph by drone for free and send to you.
Seven checks from the driveway and the attic
- Shingles on the lawn after a windy night. A roof that sheds tabs at 40 mph has seal strips that have let go, which is age, not the weather. One tab is a repair; a handful every storm is a pattern.
- Curled, cupped or cracked shingles. Use binoculars from across the street. Look first at the slopes that take the afternoon sun; they age years ahead of the shaded ones, and two same age roofs on the same street can be in different decades.
- Granules in the gutters. Coarse black sand at the downspout outlets or in the gutter trough. A roof sheds a little all its life and a lot near the end, and heavy loss after an ordinary rain means the shingles are giving up their protection.
- Streaks versus bald patches. Dark streaks running down a slope are algae and mostly cosmetic. Shiny, bald patches where the granules are gone, often at the bottom of the slope and around the edges, are wear.
- Rust and lifted metal. Orange streaks below a chimney, a skylight or a wall, or flashing that stands proud of the shingles. Flashing fails before shingles do, and most of the leaks we are called to in Central New Jersey are a flashing joint, not the roof.
- A sag or a wave in the ridge. Stand back and sight along the ridge line. A dip means the decking or the structure underneath has been wet, and that is a call today, not next season.
- The attic on a sunny day. Take a flashlight up the hatch with the lights off: pinpoints of daylight, dark stains on the underside of the sheathing, damp insulation, frost on the nails in winter, a musty smell. While you are there, look for the vents and whether they are clear; poor ventilation cooks shingles from below in summer and feeds ice dams in winter.
What the signs mean
One sign in one place is usually a repair: a lifted section, a failed flashing joint, a slope that took a limb. The same sign everywhere is the roof telling you its age, and on a roof like that the honest conversation is about replacement and timing, not about patching. The test we use is simple. Point at the problem. If you can, it is probably a repair. If the problem is the whole roof, it is not.
The age trap: house age is not roof age
The year on the tax record is the year the house was built, not the year the roof was last done, and the two drift apart on every reroofed home. New owners then go to the town for the permit history, and here is the catch: since March 2018, New Jersey’s construction code treats replacing the roof covering on a detached one or two family home as ordinary maintenance. No permit, no inspection, no record. A home that shows no roof permit since 2015 may have a new roof, or the original one, and the file cannot tell you which.
To find the real age, start with the seller’s disclosure and any warranty paperwork or manufacturer registration the previous owner left. Ask the neighbors; same street, same builder, same roofs. When the paper trail runs out, the wear itself gives the answer, which is what an inspection reads.
When to call
Any leak, however small. Shingles on the lawn after wind. A sag in the ridge. A 3 tab roof past 15 years or an architectural roof past 20 showing any of the signs above. A letter from your insurer about roof age. And before you list a house or close on one, because a roof surprise at closing is the expensive kind.
What a free inspection gives you
Drone photographs of every slope, a look at the flashing and the attic, and a written report with a remaining life estimate and a plain recommendation: nothing, a repair, or a replacement and roughly when. We say which one we think you are looking at, and if the roof does not need replacing, the report says so. That is the whole point of looking before anyone sells you anything.