As
another powerful storm system
lashes the Bay Area with high winds and heavy rain this week, many residents, especially those with older homes, are encountering a dreaded problem: a leaking roof.
On Wednesday, many roofers and contractors were “slammed” with calls from homeowners frantically trying to get newly discovered leaks fixed.
To handle the slew of calls, contractors have to prioritize, said Mike Terry, president of Alameda-based roof maintenance company
Rain Defense, which primarily serves multifamily buildings and homeowners associations. That means a repair company might not be able to come to your home right away — or even for a few days.
Because the Bay Area doesn’t see consistent year-round rainfall, contractors and roofers start prepping for the winter months as soon as they can, but can’t always afford to keep tons of staff on hand for just a few rainy months in the year, Terry said. That’s why it’s important for homeowners to be patient with contractors and repair workers.
ARS Roofing employees work on a home in Tiburon.
Josh Edelson, Str / JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHRApollo Roofing Co., which has offices around the Bay Area, said that rainy days always bring an influx of calls due to leaks because many people do not maintain their roofs.
“With every rain, scheduling an appointment with the top professionals gets more challenging,” the company’s CEO Shimon Elmadawi wrote
in a blog post
in December.
After the
New Year’s Eve storm, searches for “roof leak” and “roof leak repair” spiked in the Bay Area, according to Google Trends data.
While you will need a professional to repair your leak if you don’t want it to happen again, there are steps you can take to mitigate the damage if you can’t get someone out to fix your roof immediately.
During the storm:
• First, take a picture of your leak. That can help contractors determine how to fix your issue ahead of time and can help with insurance if your plan covers roof leaks.
• Clear the area underneath the leak if you can, and cover what you can’t move with plastic to prevent water damage. Place a bucket beneath the leak to catch as much water as possible.
• If your drywall is wet, use a screwdriver to poke a hole in the drywall and allow the water to drain into a bucket. The small hole will be easy to fix later on and will prevent the whole ceiling from caving in and creating a worse problem.
• Do not risk climbing on a roof if it’s still raining and windy outside. Slips can easily happen when the roof is wet.
If it is safe to be outside, and dry:
• Make sure your gutters, downspouts and drains are clean, if it is safe to do so. Backed-up gutters can easily cause leaks.
• If you have a sloped roof, you can climb up and place tarp over where you think the leak is coming from. Place the tarp over a wide enough area to make sure you’ve covered the leak and weigh it down with two-by-fours.
• For a flat roof, you can use asphalt mastic, a black tar-like substance you can find at home improvement stores, to make a temporary fix. In the area of the leak, you’ll have to scrape your roof clean of gravel and asphalt down to the membrane so that the mastic has something to stick to, and slather it over the location.
Once the storm passes, the most important thing to do is make sure you regularly maintain your roof, especially outside of the rainy season, many roofing companies said.
“The best way to stop a leak is to prevent one,” Terry said.
Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @DanielleEchev