Why we inspect for free
Most roof problems are small when they start and expensive by the time they show up inside the house. A cracked pipe boot lets in a cup of water per storm for a year before the ceiling stains. A lifted shingle lets the next big wind take ten more. The homeowner who catches these early pays for a repair. The one who doesn’t may end up paying for a replacement.
So we don’t charge to look. We get on the roof, see what’s there, and tell you. If it’s fine, we say so. If it isn’t, you get a written, itemized quote and all the time you need to think about it.
When to get one
- Buying or selling a home. The roof is one of the most expensive parts of a house, and a general home inspection rarely goes up on it. Know what you’re buying, or know what a buyer’s inspector will find before they do.
- After a storm. Wind and wind-driven rain do damage you can’t see from the ground. An inspection after a tropical storm or hurricane tells you whether to open an insurance claim while the damage is still fresh.
- Before hurricane season. Loose ridge caps, worn seals, and slipped tile are easy to fix in May and much harder to fix in September.
- Roof age. If your roof is more than a few years old and nobody has looked at it closely, it’s time.
- Visible wear. Granules in the gutters, shingles in the yard, moss or dark streaking, tile that looks out of line, a ceiling stain that comes and goes.
- Your insurer is asking. Florida insurance companies increasingly want to know the condition and age of a roof. We document it so you have a clear answer.
What we look at
We inspect the roof as a system, not just the surface you see from the street.
The surface material first: shingle granule loss, cracking or curling, cracked or slipped tile, loose or rusted metal panels and fasteners. Then the flashing at every wall, chimney, skylight, and valley, which causes more leaks than the roofing material does. Penetrations next (pipe boots, vents, satellite mounts, solar standoffs), because each one is a hole somebody made in your roof and sealed with something that doesn’t last forever.
Where it’s visible, we check the underlayment at the edges and any exposed areas. We look at the fascia, soffit, and drip edge around the perimeter for rot and separation, since that’s where water backs up when gutters fail. And when we can get to it, we look at the attic side: stained decking, daylight through the sheathing, wet insulation, and ventilation that isn’t doing its job.
Our crew has done this together for more than 30 years. We know what a roof looks like at year five, year fifteen, and year twenty-five, and we know which problems matter now and which can wait.
What you get
- Photos of everything we found, good and bad, so you can see what we saw without climbing a ladder.
- A plain explanation of what’s going on and what it means for the roof’s remaining life.
- An itemized written quote, only if work is actually needed. What’s wrong, what we’d do, and what it costs. If the right answer is a small repair, that’s what we’ll quote.
- No pressure. The quote is yours to sit with. We won’t call to chase you, and we won’t invent urgency that isn’t there.
If the inspection turns up only small things (a dried-out pipe boot, a few slipped tiles, a lifted ridge cap), ask about a roof tune-up: one written list, one price, and we fix all of it, the same visit when the materials are on the truck.
Who’s doing the looking
First Coast Roofing is a family business on its third generation of roofers, based in Palm Coast. The same core crew has worked together for over 30 years, with more than 40 years of hands-on roofing experience between us. We’re Florida Certified Roofing Contractor #CCC057958, fully insured, and manufacturer-certified Atlas installers.
We inspect every roof type we install and repair (shingle, concrete and clay tile, metal, flat and low-slope, and copper) on homes from modest single-story ranches to oceanfront houses with roofs more than 50 feet off the ground. See our recent work for a sense of the range, read common roofing questions, or get in touch to schedule a free inspection. Call (386) 864-9600 if you’d rather just talk.
