The other roof piece on this site is a check after rain you can do from the ground. This page starts later: water has already advertised itself. Your job is to decide whether tonight is a bucket-and-daylight job or a phone call before the ceiling paper lets go.
Do not walk the covering. Do not lean a ladder against a wet eaves in the dark. The directory is for a number, not a rescue. For pounds, use new roof costs after the house is dry enough to talk about scope.
Call now — not after another cup of tea
These are not “see how it looks in the morning” problems. They are weather still entering the house, or a ceiling that is about to fail.
- Water is running, dripping in a rhythm, or spraying, not just a stain.
- A ceiling is bowing, cracking with a wet sound, or already dropped a patch of plaster.
- You can see daylight through the covering, or slates or tiles are on the lawn after wind.
- The loft insulation is sodden and water is tracking to a light fitting or a consumer unit.
- A flat roof is holding a pond that has found the lantern or the abutment.
If water is on electrical fittings, turn the circuit off at the consumer unit if you can do that without standing in water. Do not poke a wet rose with a screwdriver. Call an electrician as well as a roofer.
Move furniture, put a bucket under a steady drip, and photograph the wet patch and the loft if you can do so from the hatch. That is what you read out on the phone. It is not a diagnosis this site can make.
What can wait for daylight
A tea-coloured stain that does not grow, after one short rain, with a dry loft when you look from the hatch, can wait until you can see the covering from the garden. Mark the edge of the stain with pencil. If it grows through the next rain, you have a live path. If it does not, you may be looking at an old track or condensation at a cold corner — still worth a look, not a midnight scaffold.
Condensation on the underside of felt in a cold loft after a hot bath is a ventilation conversation, not automatically a missing tile. The damp-patch guide is the better first read if the stain is on a wall and ignores the weather.
What you can do from the hatch
- Take a torch. Look, do not climb onto joists you cannot see.
- Find whether insulation is wet in a line from the eaves or in a ring around a chimney.
- Put a bowl under a drip you can reach without leaving the hatch boards.
- If a tank or a pipe is the source, that is a plumber, not a roofer.
- Close the hatch. Wet loft dust on a bedroom carpet is how a small leak becomes two trades.
Chimneys, valleys and the back of a parapet are where leaks restart after a “few tiles” visit. Say those words on the call if that is what you can see. Do not invent a covering you cannot name.
Who the job actually is
A covering, flashing or flat-roof membrane is a roofer. A tank, overflow or central-heating pipe in the loft is a plumber. A wet light fitting is an electrician until it is dry. A stained room after the roof is proven tight is a decorator. Calling the wrong trade first is how you pay for a visit that only points at the hatch.
This site does not email the roofer. Open roofing — for example London or Manchester — and use the number on the card. Ask whether they can make it weather-tight today, and what a permanent covering would be as a second figure.
Questions before you get on a ladder
Should I get on the roof?
No. Look from the garden and from the loft hatch. A wet covering in the dark is how a leak becomes a fall.
When is a stain an emergency?
When water is still arriving, a ceiling is bowing, slates are off, or electrics are wet. A dry, stable stain can wait for daylight.
Is this the same as the seasonal roof check?
No. That piece is a ground-level look after rain. This piece starts when water has already shown itself inside.
Where do I find a roofer?
Open a roofing city list and use the phone number on the profile. This site does not send your job.
Need a roofer’s number?
Open roofing, pick the city, and contact the business yourself.