The Bay of Plenty cops some of the worst weather on the east coast. Cyclone Gabrielle remnants, autumn easterlies, the odd cold-front belt in winter. A 20 minute check now saves a four-figure insurance excess later.
Five things to do before the next blow comes through. None of them need a ladder. None of them need a roofer.
1. Look up before you walk in
Next time you pull into your driveway, before you go inside, just look at the roof from the ground. You are scanning for three things:
- Lifted ridge caps. The capping along the peak should sit flat against the roof line. If you can see a clear gap or daylight, wind has already worked it loose.
- Displaced or buckled sheets. A sheet that has slipped sideways even 5mm will leak in the next downpour.
- Missing or twisted screws. If you spot a screw head sticking proud of the sheet, the fixing is failing.
Take a photo with your phone. If anything looks off compared to last time, call us.
2. Clear the gutters before April
This is the one everyone knows about, and the one everyone leaves too long. The pohutukawa and oak around BoP drop heavy in late March. By the first real downpour in April those gutters are full.
Blocked gutters do three things, in order of cost:
- Water backs up under the bottom rows of roofing iron and rots the timber edge of your decking.
- Water sheets down the wall and erodes paint, then the cladding behind it.
- Water comes through the soffit and you have a ceiling leak you cannot trace.
If you cannot do it yourself, hire a gutter cleaner. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. Around $200 for a standard home.
3. Walk every ceiling in the house
Inside job, takes ten minutes. You are looking for the early signs of a leak that has not yet shown up in a downpour:
- Brown or yellow stains on ceilings, especially in corners and where the ceiling meets an exterior wall.
- Bubbled or peeling paint on the ceiling, often right above a window or door.
- Mould spots in the corners of the highest rooms in the house, especially the wall side that faces the prevailing wind (SE in most of BoP).
- Sagging gib anywhere overhead.
Catch any of these early and you are looking at a $400 repair instead of a $4,000 one.
One you can skip but should not: Pop the manhole and look in the roof space with a torch. Dark stains on the bottom face of the underlay, or wet insulation, are the earliest warning you will get of a leak. Worth the five minutes once a year.
4. Branches over the roof, gone by autumn
Trees that overhang the roof are the single biggest cause of insurance-claim storm damage in BoP. A 100km/h gust takes a branch out of an old totara, the branch punches a hole in your iron, the next squall fills your roof space with water. That is a $15,000 to $25,000 claim that did not need to happen.
Rule of thumb: any branch over the roof bigger than your wrist should come off before May. Anything dead, anywhere near the roof, should go now.
If the tree is over the boundary it is your neighbour's responsibility, but you can cut anything that overhangs your property at the boundary line under the Property Law Act. Most neighbours are reasonable about it if you ask first.
5. Skylights, sky domes, and any sealant lines
Sealant has a 7 to 10 year lifespan. After that it shrinks, cracks, and stops doing its job. Walk around the house and look up at:
- Sky dome perimeters (the clear plastic bubbles)
- Velux flashings (where the skylight meets the roof iron)
- Where a roof meets a wall (the "saddle" flashing)
- The chimney apron, if you still have one
Any sealant that has cracked, peeled, or pulled away from the surface is a leak waiting to happen. The fix is twenty minutes with a tube of high-grade sealant. We can do it next time we are in your area, or sneak it onto a service visit if we are nearby.
Bonus: take photos of the roof now
This one is for the insurance claim you hopefully will not have to make. Grab your phone, walk around the house, and take wide shots of the roof from each side. Take close-ups of the ridge, gutters, sky domes, and any flashings. Save them somewhere with a date stamp.
If a storm does damage anything later, you have a "before" photo to compare against. Insurers love this. It speeds up claims by weeks and gets you a better settlement.
When to call us
If anything you spotted feels off and you are not sure, send us a photo. We will tell you straight away whether it needs to be fixed before winter or whether it can wait. No charge.
And if you spot something during or right after a storm — sheet lifted, leak coming through a ceiling, branch through the iron — call Jared straight away on 021 211 5474. We do emergency tarp-ups across BoP and can usually be there within a day.
Pre-storm inspection
Want us to come do the full check for you? Free, no obligation. Worth it on any home over 15 years old.
