Water from a roof leak rarely drips where it gets in. It gets past the roof at flashing, a chimney, a skylight or a vent pipe, runs down the roof deck or along a rafter, and drops onto the ceiling a few feet away — sometimes in another room. That is why a roof leak can be patched in the wrong spot and keep leaking. We start inside: moisture readings and thermal imaging at the ceiling, then the attic, where the wet trail on the wood and the insulation leads up the slope toward the entry point. From the ground, we look at what sits above it. You get the entry point in writing, with what we measured and when — so the roof is repaired where the water actually comes in.
Most roof leaks start where the roof is interrupted, not in the middle of a slope. Flashing — the metal where the roof meets a wall, a dormer or a chimney — can pull away or rust through. A chimney can also let water in through the brick, the mortar or the cap on top, and that is masonry work, not roofing. A skylight can leak at its flashing, at the seal between the glass and the frame, or not at all: warm air from the house condenses on the cold glass and runs down like a leak. The rubber boot around a vent pipe cracks in the sun. Before anyone is hired to repair flashing on the roof or fix a skylight leak, it helps to know which of these it is — they are different repairs, sometimes by different trades.
A leak that shows up only in winter may not be a hole in the roof. When heat from the house warms the roof, snow melts higher up, runs down and freezes again at the cold eave; the ice holds back the next meltwater, which backs up under the shingles and into the wall or ceiling near the edge of the house. Inside the attic, moist air from the house can freeze on the underside of the roof as frost, then melt on the first mild day and drip onto the insulation — it looks like a roof leak on a dry, sunny day. In both cases, part of the answer is below the roof: warm, moist air leaking from the house into the attic. The thermal camera shows where.
What it costs to fix a roof leak depends on what is leaking. A cracked vent boot, a section of flashing at a chimney, a skylight, the underlayment at the eaves, or a roof that has reached the end of its life are very different jobs. Search for roof leak repair near me and you will find roofers; each one prices what they can see from where they stand. With the entry point in writing — the readings, the photos from the attic, the spot on the roof — the roofers you call are pricing the same repair, and you can compare their quotes.
What we do and do not do. We diagnose and document — we do not perform the repair. Our Rockland County home improvement license is in process; until it is issued, the repair itself is contracted directly between you and a licensed contractor. Standing water often leads to mold, and New York State requires a licensed mold remediation contractor for that work — we will tell you plainly when you need one. We are not a public adjuster: we document what we measured so your insurer has facts; we do not file or negotiate your claim. In Westchester and Putnam: leak detection and thermal inspection with a written report only.