Roof Inspections in Palatka, Putnam County and Across North Florida

A general home inspector looks at a lot of house in a few hours, and many look at the roof from the ground or from the ladder at the eave. That is not enough on a house in Palatka with a 1970s block-and-stucco roofline, or on a river house in Welaka with three additions and three roof ages.

We walk every slope we can safely walk, go into the attic, and put the roof's real condition in writing before you sign. Buyers use the report to negotiate a credit, ask for a repair, or walk away. If the roof needs replacing, you also get a written estimate for the roof replacement, so the number in the negotiation is a real one.

Two forms come up in nearly every Florida insurance conversation.

A wind mitigation inspection uses the state's Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form, OIR-B1-1802. It records the features that make a house hold up in wind: the roof covering and when it was permitted, how the deck is nailed, how the roof is tied to the walls, the roof shape, whether there is a secondary water barrier, and opening protection. Insurers give discounts for the good answers.

A 4-point inspection covers the roof, the electrical, the plumbing and the HVAC. Insurers ask for it on older houses before they will write or renew a policy, and the roof section asks about age, material, condition and remaining life.

Here is the honest line: we inspect and document the roof; your inspector or your insurer uses those forms. We photograph the deck nailing and the roof-to-wall connections from the attic, document the underlayment and the covering, and pull the permit history where we can. If your insurer wants a repair done before it will renew, we do the roof repair and photograph it for the file. Many insurers in north Florida now decline or non-renew policies on older shingle roofs, and a documented inspection gets you a straight answer.

After a tropical storm, a hurricane brush, or a hail cell over Interlachen or East Palatka, most roofs look fine from the driveway. Wind damage on shingles is lifted tabs with broken seal strips, creased shingles, and missing pieces on the leeward slope where the wind curled over the ridge. Hail leaves bruises in the shingle mat and dents in the vent caps and drip edge.

We photograph every slope and tell you whether what we found is storm damage, old wear, or nothing. If it is a claim, the report becomes the starting point for the documentation on our storm damage restoration page. If it is not, we say so, because filing a claim for wear and tear helps nobody.

Florida sun and the summer thunderstorm season age a roof fast. A once-a-year look, ideally in late spring before hurricane season, catches the small things while they are small: a cracked pipe boot, a lifted shingle at the rake, a clogged valley under a live oak, a fastener backing out of a screw-down panel.

On a metal roof, we check the fasteners, the sealant at the ridge and penetrations, the finish, and the eave and rake trim. A well-installed standing seam metal roof needs very little, but a screw-down panel roof from the 1990s benefits from a fastener check every few years. On a shingle roof, we look for granule loss, brittle tabs and exposed nail heads.

In the attic: the underside of the deck for stains, rot and daylight, the nailing pattern, the roof-to-wall connection, wet insulation, ventilation, and ductwork that can sweat and look like a leak.

At the eaves and edges: drip edge, fascia where a gutter has been pulling, soffit vents, the starter course on shingles, the eave closure on metal.

On the field of the roof: shingle condition and seal, panel condition and fasteners, seams, nail pops, algae and debris, ponding on low-slope sections.

At every penetration and transition: pipe boots, vent caps, skylights, chimney and wall flashing, valleys, and the ridge and hip caps. This is where most leaks start, so this is where we slow down. A house with an active drip gets the deeper process on our roof leak repair and detection page.

You get a written report, not a verbal opinion at the truck. It lists what we found by location, with a photo of each item, what it means, and what we recommend: monitor it, repair it, or plan for replacement. If a repair is recommended, the estimate is attached. If replacement is recommended, we explain why, and financing through Regions Bank and EnerBank is available if the timing is bad.

Where a roof is steep or high, we use drone photos so every slope gets documented. Tania sends the report by email, and it is yours to hand to a buyer, a seller, an inspector or an insurer.

Florida's Building Code has long had a 25 percent rule: when more than 25 percent of a roof section is repaired or replaced within a year, the whole section has to be brought up to current code, which for years meant a full replacement. In 2022, Senate Bill 4-D changed that. A roof built or replaced under the 2007 Florida Building Code or later can now be repaired without triggering a full replacement. Older roofs still fall under the old rule.

Which side of the line your roof sits on comes down to when it was permitted, and that is one of the things we document. It matters after a storm, when one slope needs work. We explain the rule in our post on the Florida 25 percent roof rule; the final word on any roof is the local building department's.