How to Inspect a Roof from the ground and the attic, in twenty minutes
Twenty minutes, twice a year. Everything worth finding is visible from a ladder you never climb and an attic you already have.
Inspect a roof in twenty minutes, twice a year
A useful roof inspection takes 20 minutes and happens entirely from the attic and the ground. You are not looking for damage so much as for the pattern of aging: where water goes, where it has stopped going where it should, and whether the roof is in its first half or its last.
Do this twice a year, in spring and fall, and again after any storm that took branches down. Ten minutes inside, ten minutes outside, and a set of dated photographs at the end that will be worth more than your memory the day you file a claim or read a bid.
One rule before anything else: stay off the roof. Walking a roof damages shingles, and homeowner falls from ladders send tens of thousands of Americans to hospital every year. Nothing in this procedure requires you to leave the ground, and a roofer with a drone or a harness sees more than you would anyway.
What you need before you inspect a roof
This procedure is done from the ground and the attic. Do not walk on the roof: it damages the covering, and ladder falls are one of the most common serious home injuries in the United States.
None of this is specialist equipment, and the binoculars do most of the work. A ladder is optional and is only ever used to look into the gutters from beside the house, never to get onto the roof.
- Binoculars
- The single most useful tool here. They turn a vague dark patch three stories up into a missing shingle tab.
- Flashlight or headlamp
- Bright enough to read the underside of the deck by.
- Your phone
- For photographs with a date on them, which is half the point of doing this.
- Grip shoes, dry day
- Wet grass and a tilted ladder foot are how ground-level inspections turn into emergency rooms.
- Something to write on
- One line per plane of the roof is enough.
Start in the attic, with the lights off
The underside tells you more than the surface does, and it tells you sooner. Go up on a bright day, turn the attic light off, and let your eyes adjust for a minute before you look at anything.
- Daylight through the roof boards. Any pinhole of light is a hole, and holes around nails mean the deck is being worked loose.
- Dark staining or streaking on the underside of the sheathing, especially near the ridge and around anything that passes through the roof.
- Damp, matted or discolored insulation, which marks where water has been arriving rather than where it got in.
- Rusted nail points. Condensation on the nails is a ventilation problem, and it ages the roof from underneath.
- Whether the soffit vents are open or buried under insulation. Blocked soffits are the most common reason a roof dies a decade early.
Walk the roof perimeter with binoculars
Outside now. Walk the full way around the house and look at each plane of the roof separately, giving the south and west faces the most attention: they take the most sun and usually fail first.
- Shingles curling at the corners or cupping in the middle.
- Missing tabs, and the darker rectangles they leave behind.
- Bald patches where the surface reads smoother and shinier than the shingles around it.
- Lines of shingles that have slipped out of alignment, which usually means the nails have let go.
- Moss or heavy algae streaking, particularly on the shaded north side.
- Any sag along the ridge or between rafters. A sagging line is a structural finding, not a covering one, and it is the one item on this page that justifies a call the same week.
Read the gutters and downspouts
The gutters hold the physical evidence of how far through its life the roof is. Look into them from a ladder set beside the house, or check what comes out of the downspout after rain.
- Granules. A cupful of coarse grit that looks like fine gravel is the shingle surface leaving, and past the first year after installation it is the clearest sign a roof is in its last third.
- Standing water or sagging sections, which point at blocked runs or loose hangers rather than at the roof.
- Debris packed into the outlets, and how much of it is roof material rather than leaves.
- Separated seams and rust at the joints, which cost far less to fix than the fascia they eventually rot.
What a roof inspection is really following
Every finding on this page is the same question asked five ways: where is the water going, and where has it stopped going where it should
Check every roof edge and penetration
Most roofs do not leak in the middle of a plane. They leak where the covering has to stop and be joined to something else, so this is where a careful look pays for itself.
- Chimney flashing: it should be metal set into the masonry, not a bead of caulk or a smear of roof cement. Sealant used as flashing is a repair with a two-year clock on it.
- Plumbing vent boots. The rubber collar cracks and splits long before the shingles wear out, and it is a cheap fix until it is not.
- Valleys, where two planes meet and all the water goes. Look for wear stripes, debris dams and exposed metal.
- Skylight edges, which have the same failure pattern as chimneys.
- The drip edge along the eaves and rakes. Missing drip edge lets water run back under the shingles and rot the deck from the edge inward.
Come back inside and check the ceilings under the roof
Water rarely appears below the hole it came through. Walk the top floor and check the ceilings in daylight, then the walls under any part of the roof that turned up something outside.
- Brown or yellow rings on ceilings, and whether their edges are sharp (old and dry) or soft (active).
- Paint that has bubbled, blistered or lifted along a ceiling line.
- Damp or musty smells in closets that back onto an exterior wall.
- Stains around the chimney chase or a bathroom vent, the two places attic condensation collects.
Photograph the roof and date the file
The inspection is worth doing twice a year because the comparison is the finding. One set of photographs shows a roof; two sets a year apart show a rate of decline, and that is what tells you whether you are budgeting for next spring or for five years out.
- Each plane, same spot
- Photograph from the same standing position every time, so the images stack.
- The attic and the gutters
- Close enough to see granules, which is the finding a photograph proves best.
- Date and weather
- Plus anything that changed since the last time you looked.
- File it with the policy
- After a storm, dated before-and-after photographs are the difference between a claim and an argument.
When to stop and call a roofer
Most of what this inspection turns up can wait for the next dry weekend. These cannot, and none of them are DIY work.
- Any sag along a ridge or in a plane, which points at the deck or the structure under it.
- Daylight visible through the roof boards from the attic.
- An active leak, meaning a stain that is damp to the touch or growing between checks.
- Storm damage you intend to claim. Have it documented professionally before anything is repaired, or the insurer prices the argument, not the roof.
- Anything on a roof steeper than a normal walking pitch, or on a second story. The view from a drone costs less than a fall.
What homeowners ask about checking a roof
How often should I inspect my roof?
Twice a year, in spring and fall, and after any storm that brought down branches. Once the roof passes fifteen, add a professional inspection every few years: the cheap findings are the ones caught before they reach the deck.
Should I walk on my roof to check it?
No. Walking damages shingles, especially in cold or very hot weather, and ladder falls are one of the most common serious home injuries in the United States. Everything in this procedure is visible from the ground, the attic and a set of binoculars.
What does a professional roof inspection cost?
Many roofers inspect for free in the hope of the job, which is useful and not neutral. An independent inspector charges a few hundred dollars and has nothing to sell you, which is worth paying for before a purchase or an insurance claim.
Are granules in the gutter always bad?
Not in the first year: new shingles shed loose granules from manufacturing. After that, a steady accumulation means the mineral surface is wearing off and the mat underneath is being exposed to UV, which is the beginning of the end.
Can I inspect a roof with a drone?
Yes, and it is the safest way to see a steep or tall roof. Fly on a calm day, keep it in sight, and check local rules first. Photographs from above also make the comparison between one year and the next much easier.
What if I find a leak but not the hole?
That is normal. Water travels along rafters and sheathing before it drops, so the entry point is usually uphill of the stain. Photograph the stain, note the weather, and let a roofer trace it rather than opening the ceiling yourself.