Roof Inspections in Fremont, CA

In the Bay Area housing market, buyers often have days, not weeks, to decide on a house, and many offers go in with few or no contingencies. A general home inspector covers the whole house in a few hours and frequently looks at the roof from the ground or from a ladder at the eave. That is not enough on a 1958 Fremont ranch house with a low-slope addition off the back, or a Santa Clara house that has had two owners and three roofers.

We walk every slope that can be walked safely, go into the attic, and put the roof's real condition in writing before you commit. Buyers use the report to negotiate a credit, ask the seller for a repair, or decide the roof is fine and stop worrying about it. If the roof is at the end of its life, you also get a written estimate for the roof replacement, so the number you carry into the negotiation is a real one and not a guess from a spreadsheet. Our post on what drives roof replacement cost in the East Bay explains what goes into that number.

Sellers in Fremont, Newark and Union City commonly hand buyers a package of pre-listing inspections, and a roof report from a roofer is a strong addition to it. It answers the buyer's biggest question before it gets asked, and it takes the roof off the table as a reason to lower the offer late in escrow. If the report turns up a cracked pipe flashing or a worn valley, a small roof repair before listing costs far less than the credit a buyer will ask for after their own inspector finds it.

The report is yours. Hand it to your agent, attach it to the disclosures, or keep it for the buyer who asks.

California homeowners insurance has tightened over the last several years, and one of the things carriers look at more closely now is the roof. Some ask for the roof's age, material and condition at renewal, sometimes with photos. Under California rules a carrier can decline to renew a policy based on its underwriting standards, which can include the roof, as long as it gives the notice the state requires. We cannot tell you what any particular company will do, and we do not fill out insurance forms.

What we can do is document the roof so you have a straight answer to give. The report records the roofing material, its condition slope by slope, the flashings, the state of the deck from the attic, and what we recommend. Where a permit record exists for the last re-roof, we help you find it, because the permit date is the age your carrier will believe. If the carrier wants something fixed before it will renew, we do the repair and photograph it for the file.

Bay Area rain arrives around November and runs into March, and the atmospheric-river storms of recent winters have put more water on roofs in a weekend than some older roofs saw in a whole season. A once-a-year look in September or October, before the first storm, catches the small things while they are still small: a pipe flashing with the paint worn off and rust starting at the base, a lifted shingle at the rake, a valley packed with oak leaves, a gutter pulling away from the fascia.

On north-facing slopes under trees, we look for moss and algae holding moisture against the shingles. On low-slope sections we look for ponding and for blistered or lifting membrane. On tile roofs we check for slipped or cracked tiles and for the underlayment showing through at the eave. Our roof maintenance page covers what happens after the inspection if the roof needs cleaning or moss removal, and the gutters and downspouts page covers the gutters that a pre-season check almost always turns up.

In the attic: the underside of the deck for stains, rot and daylight, the condition of the sheathing or skip boards, wet or matted insulation, ventilation at the soffits and ridge, bathroom fans that vent into the attic instead of outside, and ductwork that can sweat and look like a leak.

At the eaves and edges: drip edge, fascia where a gutter has been leaking behind it, soffit vents, the starter course, and the condition of the first course of shingles where the sun hits hardest.

On the field of the roof: shingle condition and granule loss, cracked or curling tabs, exposed nail heads, moss and debris, and the transition where a steep roof meets a low-slope addition, which is a common leak source on East Bay houses from the 1960s and 1970s.

At every penetration and transition: the pipe flashings, vent hoods, skylight curbs, chimney counterflashing, valleys, and the hip and ridge caps. Most leaks start at one of these, so this is where we slow down. A house with an active drip gets the deeper process on our roof leak repair and detection page.

Every plumbing pipe through a roof is surrounded by a metal flashing, and on most Bay Area roofs that flashing is painted steel. The paint can begin to wear off within the first year, and once the bare metal at the base is exposed, rust follows, then a leak. When Adeline inspects a roof, the pipe flashings are the first thing she photographs, because a rusted flashing base on an otherwise sound roof is the most common repair an inspection turns up.

Roofs Sonrise has installed carry stone-coated flashings from California Stone Coating. The flashing base, the collar and the vent hoods are finished in the same granule coating and color as the shingle, which helps waterproof the base of the flashing, resists rust, and is designed not to chip, peel or fade. On an inspection, those are the flashings that pass. If your roof has painted flashings that have started to rust, we will show you the photos and tell you whether it is a repair or whether the roof is getting close to due.

You get a written report, not an opinion at the truck. It lists what we found by location, with a photo of each item, what it means, and a recommendation: leave it and check again next year, repair it, or plan for replacement. If a repair is recommended, the estimate is attached. If replacement is recommended, we explain why in plain language and give you the estimate for that too. Free estimates are the rule at Sonrise, and the report goes out by email so you can forward it to an agent, a buyer, a carrier or a relative who is helping you decide.

Most inspections end with a short list: a flashing, a few shingles, a valley to clean, a downspout to reattach. That is a repair, and it is usually done in a day. Some inspections end with a longer conversation. A composition roof shedding granules across whole slopes, shingles that crack when lifted, more than one leak, a deck that gives underfoot, or a wood shake roof that has been patched for years is a roof that is done, and we would rather say so than sell you a repair that buys one winter.

Either way, the decision is yours and the numbers are in writing. Ask about our workmanship warranty on any repair or replacement we perform.