Greater Lansing
Roof repair
Most roof leaks are not holes in the roof. They are the places the covering is interrupted — a valley, a chimney, a pipe boot, a sidewall — and the stain on your ceiling is usually several feet from the fault. Here is how the water path gets found before anything is bought.
What is actually wrong
Most roof leaks are not holes in the field of the roof. A shingle is a small overlapping scale and water is off it in seconds; what lets water in is every place the covering is interrupted or has to turn a corner — a chimney, a valley where two slopes meet, a pipe boot gone brittle in the sun, a ridge vent, a sidewall where the roof dies into the house, a nail that backed out. That is why the first part of the work is finding the water path rather than buying materials, and why a roof that has been “patched” three times usually has three patches nowhere near the fault.
The second thing worth knowing is that the leak you can see is almost never under the fault. Water enters high, runs down the underside of the deck or along a rafter, and drops through at the first obstruction — a light fitting, a joint in the drywall, a nail. A stain in the middle of a bedroom ceiling can easily start eight feet away at a valley. Looking only where the stain is produces a repair that holds for exactly as long as the weather stays in one direction.
What this company does on steep slopes is repair and section work, and the records say so plainly. A patio roof was replaced in July twenty twenty-six — complete, two men on it, two thousand five hundred and twenty-three dollars in labor, crew paid. A breezeway roof at a house on Snyder Road — the structure, the membrane, the shingles and the flashing back into the house — was quoted at four thousand one hundred and sixty-two dollars, accepted at the end of October, and starts on the tenth of November. Both are the same shape of job: a defined roof, taken back to sound deck, rebuilt and re-covered properly.
Alongside that is the roofline, which is where a great deal of what people call a roof problem actually lives. Fascia soft behind a gutter, soffit open to birds and wasps, a roof return rotted where the eave meets the wall, step flashing never fitted or buried under a later layer, gutters hung so the water runs behind them. There are years of invoiced work here in exactly that — soffit, fascia, step flashing, drainage corrections — and it is frequently the real answer when somebody has been told they need the whole roof doing.
Full replacement — stripping a house back to the deck and re-covering every slope — is offered, and here is the honest state of it. The completed record above is section scale: a patio roof, a breezeway, and a long run of flashing and roofline work. A whole house is the same sequence of operations over more squares, with more tear-off, more disposal and more crew, and it is work this company is set up to take and is actively quoting. What it is not yet is work with a finished house behind it on these books, and you deserve to know which of those you are buying. Ask what else is running that week, ask who is on the roof, and ask to see the section jobs — that is a fair test and the answers are straight.
Where this stops
When it is not a handyman job
This is at the top of the page rather than the bottom because getting it wrong costs you a wasted visit. Insured, and no contractor license is claimed or implied — the Michigan residential builder license is not held.
- No torch-applied work, ever. Self-adhered and cold-applied only. Open-flame roofing is a leading cause of construction fires, it needs a hot-work permit and a fire watch held after the crew leaves, and the answer here is simply no rather than a precaution.
- No structural work to the rafters, trusses or the frame, and no judgment on whether a roof can safely carry what is on it. Rotten decking inside an opened section is repaired; a sagging ridge, a spread wall or a deflecting roof is a structural engineer and gets referred, and the referral is not treated as a lost sale.
- Full replacement is quoted and taken on, with one thing said out loud rather than buried: the finished record on these books is section scale so far — a patio roof, a breezeway, flashing and roofline work — not a completed house. That is capability and a plan, not a track record, and anybody weighing a roof this size should be told the difference and then judge it.
- Built-up roofing and mastics on anything from before about nineteen ninety are treated as asbestos-containing until sampled. They are not cut, scraped, ground or disturbed, and asbestos work is excluded.
- No roof warranty is issued. Workmanship is stood behind, but repairing a roof is not installing one and it does not carry a roof warranty — this company’s own quote wording.
- If your covering is still inside a manufacturer’s system warranty, work by anyone who is not a certified installer for that system can void what is left of it. You are told that before the work rather than after, and sometimes the right advice is to call the original installer.
- Flat and low-slope membrane roofs are a different job with different failure modes and have their own page at /services/low-slope-roof-repair.
The work itself
What actually gets done
Find the water path before anything is bought — inside in the attic and outside on the roof, because the stain and the fault are usually in different places.
Repair and replace flashing: step flashing at sidewalls, chimney and skylight flashing, valley metal, apron and drip edge, and the counter-flashing above it.
Replace failed pipe boots, re-seat and re-seal roof penetrations, and deal with ridge and box vents that are letting weather in rather than air out.
Repair wind and storm damage — lifted, cracked and missing shingles, a section peeled back, debris strikes.
Take a porch, breezeway, garage, dormer or patio roof back to sound deck and re-cover it properly, with the underlayment, flashing and ventilation detailed rather than skipped.
Replace rotten decking and sheathing found underneath, within the section being opened, and show you the photographs before it goes back over.
Strip and re-cover a full roof: tear off to the deck, repair what is found, ice and water shield at the eaves and in the valleys, new underlayment, new flashings rather than reused ones, and ridge ventilation detailed properly.
Repair the roofline that goes with it: fascia, soffit, roof returns, trim, gutters and downspouts — which is far cheaper to do while the covering is off than to come back for.
Open and close the inside too — the ceiling, the insulation and the paint that the leak ruined — so one trade is not waiting on another.
Tell you when what you have needs renewing rather than repairing, with the reasoning, instead of selling a repair onto a roof that has run out.
This work sits inside General Repairs, which carries the invoiced price bands for the trade with the sample size printed beside every figure.
What it costs
There is no price list for this, and here is what actually decides the number.
The same three words describe a twenty-minute job and a two-day one. Rather than publish a figure that is wrong for one of them, here is what moves it — so you can work out roughly which end of it you are at before anybody comes out.
Access and pitch, which drive this more than anything else. A single-story roof you can walk is one number; a steep second-story slope needing staging, roof jacks and fall protection is another, and the material cost barely moves between them.
Whether the deck under it is sound. Nobody knows until a section is opened, and soft sheathing or rotted rafter tails change a re-cover into a repair of the thing underneath.
How many interruptions are in the area — a plain rectangle of slope and the same area with a chimney, two vents and a valley in it are not the same work.
Layers. A roof already carrying two coverings costs more to strip, weighs more to carry down, and fills a skip faster than anyone expects.
How far the water traveled before it showed, because that is the difference between replacing a boot and opening a ceiling.
Matching. An existing shingle discontinued ten years ago means either a visible patch, or taking the repair out to a natural break where the eye stops.
How to get a real number
Somebody comes out, looks at it properly, and you get a fixed price in writing with the work set out line by line and the exclusions written down as plainly as the inclusions. Coming out to do that is not charged for, and neither is working out what is wrong. If something is found once a wall or a floor is open, it is priced as a written change order and you decide before the work carries on rather than after it is billed. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, first-time customers get 10% off labor, returning customers 10% to 15%, and labor carries a one-year craftsmanship warranty.
If this is happening right now
What to do in the next five minutes, and what happens when you ring.
Before anybody arrives
- Photograph the stain with the date in the frame, and photograph it again after the next rain. How fast it grows is the single most useful thing you can hand anybody.
- Go into the attic with a torch on a dry day and look at the underside of the deck, not the insulation. Dark staining, white salt-looking deposits and rusted nail points all mark where water has been running, and they are usually uphill of the stain downstairs.
- Do not get on the roof. A wet or frosted slope is lethal, and a roof that is already failing is exactly the one that will not hold you.
- Put something under it and move what matters. A bucket and a sheet of plastic cost nothing and a soaked ceiling comes down without warning.
- Note which direction the wind was in when it leaked. A leak that only shows in driven rain from one side is usually a flashing or sidewall problem, not a hole.
- If it is actively running in, a tarp weighted at the ridge rather than nailed through the covering will hold it until somebody can look. Nailing a tarp down makes new holes in the thing you are trying to keep water out of.
Call the business line
(517) 505-7135Answered Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. There is no out-of-hours line and this page is not going to invent one — outside those hours, leave a message with the address and what is happening, and it is picked up in the morning.
On the call you get asked what is happening, what else in the building is affected, and whether it is still getting worse. That is how it gets decided whether this is our job at all — and if it is not, you get told that on the phone rather than after somebody has driven out.
- No trip charge
- No call-out fee or minimum
- No diagnostic fee
- No charge for a return visit
True across all 84 written quotes this company has issued. Most contractors in this market charge to turn up.
Or send the detailsWhen the right answer is not this company
- You can smell gas
- Leave the building and call the utility from outside. Not us, and not later.
- Water you cannot stop
- Your main shut-off first, then a licensed plumber. Every minute of this one costs money.
- Sewage backing up, or several fixtures at once
- A licensed plumber with a camera. That is the shared line, not a fixture, and a cable down one sink will not touch it.
- Sparking, scorching or a burning smell at an outlet or a panel
- Breaker off, and a licensed electrician. Electrical work here is repair and like-for-like replacement, and this is neither.
- No heat, or heating and cooling equipment that has failed
- A licensed mechanical contractor. That trade is not offered here at all, and knowing that in one phone call is worth more than a visit.
Questions people actually ask
Do you do shingle roofs, or only flat ones?
Both, on separate pages, because they are separate jobs. Shingle and steep-slope work — leaks, flashings, valleys, penetrations, storm damage and re-covering a porch, breezeway, garage or dormer — is this page. Flat and low-slope membrane roofs, where water is held rather than shed, are at /services/low-slope-roof-repair. The methods genuinely do not transfer, which is why they are not run together.
Can you replace my whole roof?
Yes, and here is the part most people never get told. The finished work on these books is section scale — a patio roof replaced complete in July twenty twenty-six, a breezeway roof with its structure, membrane, shingles and flashing, and years of flashing, soffit, fascia and roofline repairs. A full house is the same sequence over more squares: strip, inspect and repair the deck, underlayment, ice and water shield at the eaves and valleys, flashings renewed rather than reused, ridge ventilation, and the roofline put right while the covering is off. It is offered, it is quoted properly, and what it does not yet have behind it on these records is a completed house. Judge that openly rather than finding it out later — ask what else is running that week, ask who will physically be on your roof, and ask to see the section work.
How do you find a leak when the stain is in the middle of the ceiling?
By not starting at the stain. Water gets in at an interruption — a valley, a chimney, a pipe boot, a sidewall, a backed-out nail — then runs down the underside of the deck or along a rafter and drops at the first thing in its way, which is often a light fitting or a drywall joint several feet away. So the work starts in the attic, looking uphill of the stain for staining on the deck, rusted nail points and the white deposits water leaves behind, and then goes outside to whatever is above that. Buying shingles before that is done is how a roof ends up with three patches and the same leak.
Is it the roof, or is it the gutters?
Very often it is neither in the way people expect, and it is worth checking the cheap answer first. Fascia soft behind a gutter, a roof return rotted where the eave meets the wall, step flashing missing where a roof dies into a sidewall, or gutters hung so water runs behind them rather than into them — all of those look exactly like a roof leak from inside the house and none of them needs a roof. There is a great deal of invoiced work here in precisely that, and it is a regular outcome of a first visit that the roof is fine and the roofline is not.
What happens if you find rot when you open it up?
You see it before it goes back over. Rotten decking and sheathing inside the section being opened is repaired as part of the work and photographed first, because the one thing nobody should accept is a covering laid over something they were never shown. What is not included is structure — a sagging ridge, spread walls or a deflecting roof is an engineer’s question, not a carpenter’s, and it gets referred rather than guessed at. That boundary exists so that what you are told is reliable, not so that a visit ends in a shrug.
Will a repair match the rest of my roof?
Honestly, sometimes not exactly, and it is better to hear that first. Shingle lines get discontinued and the ones still on your roof have had years of sun on them, so a new patch in the middle of an old slope can be visible even when the product is nominally the same. Where that matters — a front elevation, a slope you see from the drive — the usual answer is to run the repair out to a natural break such as a valley, a ridge or a hip, so the eye stops there instead of at the edge of a patch. That is a conversation to have before the work, not a surprise afterwards.
Do you work in winter?
For leaks and emergency work, yes, and that is when most of it is needed. For re-covering a section there is a real limitation that is worth being straight about: self-sealing shingles need warmth to bond, so one laid in a Michigan January will sit unsealed until spring and is vulnerable to wind in the meantime. Where that applies the strips get hand-sealed, or the work gets scheduled for weather that will do the job properly. What does not wait is water actively coming into a house.
Do you give a warranty on a roof repair?
Workmanship is stood behind, but no roof warranty is issued, and the distinction is deliberate rather than a get-out. Repairing a roof is not installing one: the rest of the covering is whatever age and condition it already was, and nobody can warrant a roof they did not put on. There is also a trap worth knowing about in the other direction — if your covering is still inside a manufacturer’s system warranty, having anyone other than one of their certified installers work on it can void what is left, and you will be told that before anything is touched.
Book a roof assessment
Photograph the stain with the date in the frame, and tell us which direction the wind was in when it leaked — a leak that only shows in driven rain from one side is a flashing problem, not a hole. Please do not go up there yourself. Somebody gets on it safely, works out where the water is actually entering, and puts a fixed price in writing. Coming out is free, and there is no trip charge.