My Brand New Roof Is Leaking. What Now?

Call the contractor who installed the roof, in writing, before you call anyone else. A leak on a new roof is almost always a workmanship issue covered by the workmanship warranty, and a competent roofer will want to come back and fix it, so give them that chance and document the request. Meanwhile, protect the inside of the house and photograph everything.

What to do in the first hour

• Move furniture and electronics out from under the drip.
• Put a container down and check it so it does not overflow.
• If the ceiling is bulging with trapped water, a small hole at the lowest point drains it into a bucket in a controlled way, rather than letting the ceiling fall on its own.
• If water is near a light fixture or outlet, cut power to that room at the breaker.
• Photograph everything, with the date visible or noted.
• Do not go up on the roof. Wet shingles are a common way people get hurt, and it will not change what the contractor needs to see.

Why new roofs leak

A leak right after a roof replacement is unsettling, but it does not usually mean the whole job was done poorly. Most causes are narrow, ordinary and fixable once someone gets eyes on the exact spot.

• Flashing. By a wide margin the most common cause. Step flashing along a sidewall, counter flashing at a chimney, or a pipe boot reused instead of replaced during the tear-off. Any one of these can let water in at a single seam while the rest of the roof performs fine.
• A skylight flashed into the new roof. If it was flashed around rather than properly re-flashed or replaced, the joint is a likely point of entry.
• Nails placed too high. If a nail misses the shingle's nailing strip, that shingle is not pulled down and sealed properly, and wind-driven rain can work its way in.
• A valley detail done wrong. Valleys carry more water than any other part of a roof, and the layering underneath has to be right, not just the shingles you can see.
• Ice and water shield that does not run far enough up from the eave. This is easy to miss, because it will not show up in the first rain, only the first time ice dams form and meltwater backs up higher than the membrane reaches. See how ice dams form on Long Island roofs and how they are stopped.
• Something that is not the roof at all. Condensation from an unventilated attic can look exactly like a leak and is a ventilation problem, not a roofing defect. Siding, a chimney crown, or a wall leak above the roofline can also be a source that predates the roof work and is only now being noticed.

How to raise it properly

Put the issue in writing, with photographs and the date, sent to the contractor directly. Reference the workmanship warranty and ask for a specific inspection date rather than a vague "we will get to it." Keep the message factual: where the water is, when it started, what the weather was doing. Most of these get resolved on the first callback, a flashing fix or a re-nail is a small job for a crew that already knows the roof.

If they will not come back

If the original contractor is not responding, reference the written scope and the workmanship warranty again, and escalate in writing rather than by phone alone. At that point it is worth getting an independent inspection to document the actual cause, so you know what you are dealing with.

We will do that inspection on a roof somebody else installed. Our report will say plainly if the work is sound and the leak is coming from somewhere else, or if it points to a specific issue the original crew needs to address. Our free roof inspection covers this.

If you have not released final payment yet, raise the issue before you do. It also helps to know what to check before you sign off on any roof.

Questions homeowners ask about new roof leaks