Roof inspection
An inspection is worth its cost when it answers a decision you are about to make: buying a house, planning next summer’s budget, or deciding whether a covering has one more winter in it. In a climate with a five-month working season, knowing the answer in March is worth considerably more than knowing it in August.
When it earns its price
Three moments justify the cost. Before a purchase — roof condition is one of the largest numbers hiding in a house, and in this market it comes with a second question most buyers never ask: does this house dam at the eaves? The answer lives in the attic, not the listing photos. After the thaw — March and April are when winter’s work becomes visible and when the season’s calendar is still open. And near the end of a covering’s life, when the real question is “this summer or in three years”: a documented answer beats a guess in either direction, because replacing early wastes remaining life and replacing late buys deck repair on top of the same roof.
What gets checked
On the surface: ridge caps and the scattered small failures that mark thermal fatigue; granule loss across the field, worst on the south and west slopes; the condition of valleys and what is sitting in them; sealant and flashing at every chimney, wall and vent penetration — including the garage-to-house junction that carries meltwater all winter; and the rubber boots at plumbing vents, which crack in their second decade and are often a roof’s first true leak.
On the attic side, which matters more here than anywhere else in the portfolio: intake at the soffits and whether insulation has buried it; exhaust at the ridge and whether it is sized to match; frost or staining on the underside of the deck; bath fans ducted into the attic instead of outside; and air leaks around fixtures and the hatch. A Minnesota roof report that skips the attic has skipped the half that explains February.
What the report is good for
A written report with photographs does three jobs. It turns a purchase negotiation from opinion into evidence. It converts “sometime soon” into a plan with a season attached — which in a five-month market is the difference between choosing a contractor and taking whoever is free in September. And when replacement is the verdict, it becomes the scope document that makes three bids comparable, because every bidder is pricing the same documented findings — the same valleys, the same ventilation corrections — rather than their own quick look.