How is a roof inspection done
Performing a Roof Inspection with Russ Ackerman CMI®
Hi. My name is Russ Ackerman. I'm a Certified Master Inspector through
InterNACHI. I'm here to do a roof inspection. Today we're going to cover a typical
inspection of a roof from the exterior. My roof inspection starts from the
ground. As I'm as I'm inspecting the exterior of the home, I'll usually start
by documenting attic ventilation which might not otherwise be visible from the
roof that would include gable and soffit vents. So I'm going to walk around the
house now and try to look for those and here in the side of the house we can see
we have a gable bent so I'm going to take a picture and document that on my
report when I set up my ladder I typically look for a place where I got a
nice flat surface to set the ladder anytime you're setting up the ladders I
always want to look for wasps nests that might be around always looking for
overhead power lines as well as you get up in the ladder we're always going to
tie off our butt ladders with a bungee cord as you see up there I always want
to keep your ladder tied once we get up at the gutter line I usually want to
check for any drip edge flashing that might be here this one does not have any
because the gutter is serving as the drip flashing or gently pull up on the
shingles I can see that there's underlayment going over the flashing
make this sure to bond it down it's not the wind is not going to take and pull
it up once we're on the roof here I'm going to continue looking for attic
ventilation so I'm going to be looking for a roof vents will go overlooked for
that here we can see we have roof vents for the Attic so I'm going to talking
about that take a picture of that make sure all the nails are sealed down as
well next we take some overview shots of the roof I always like to make my
pictures look great so if I have a mountain view versus another house I'm
going to take the mountain view so I'll go over here and take a couple photos
and I'll take some photos some more overview shots and I'll get one overview
of justice ingles in general and then as we were looking over the conditional
roof I am seeing some granule laws I'll go over look for exposed nails the
flashings this is all sealed up good you come over here we have some exposed
nails at the ridge line here so I make sure those are all set and sealed
they're popping out get over here you can see one exposed nail some granule
law so the Hale kind of hits sometimes it shows up on the ridge shingles versus
the rest of the roof plane and as we get to the valleys I want to check to make
sure they're properly bonded and we want to these shingles sealed against cross
wash so the water doesn't wash over and under so I'll give a little Cub going
down the valley just to make sure they sealed and these are pretty good
these are sealed pretty well also in order to document other flashing around
that roof besides a drip edge flashing any roof penetrations I always want to
document those look making sure they're properly installed make us your nails
are sealed take pictures of everything document everything because this is a
area that the client is not going to follow you up on the roof your HVAC vent
over here as well check again for flashing issues exposed nails want to
make sure there's no cracks in the bed here which might allow water that's
actually drain and back into the furnace you come around here you can see some
nails popping up the flashing is popping up you got a big gap here on make sure
this one have a roofer come in here seal these nails seal that flashing back down
same with the skylight here as well got the flashing popping up wanna have that
secured and nailed
here you can see over the sunroom in the back of the house there there's still
asphalt shingles but it's definitely newer it's been installed recently the
owner actually said it was 1/2 years old I put it on my report one to five years
old so we're to check that out first thing I noticed is some flashing issues
where this addition is going against the original roof kind of hard to see here
but I'll take some pictures there's a metal flashing and then they just have
it covered with tar paper which is a indication this things might have had
leaking problems at at one point this plastic is improperly installed on top
of the singles should be like a counter flashing installed here so I did take a
couple pictures and document that we recommend evaluation repair by a
qualified roofer potential leaking point here that's an issue
continuing with flashing down here you can see on the lower roof they have
actually a piece of wood glued to the chimney or talked to the chimney working
as a counter flash and that's improper install but the counter flashing should
be going into the motor joints of the chimney which it's not this is a
potential issue it's something I would recommend the sellers to caulk or the
buyers to have them check the seals make sure this is sealed annually or replace
by a qualified roofer also at the bottom of this flashing that we're looking at
right now you can see we're missing a kick-out flashing where the flashing
ends at the gutter line there that's going to allow water to just pour down
along the side of the chimney we want to have a proper kick-out flashing
installed there as well on this roof surface you can see that there's a
broken there's a low sluice missing tab here on the roof and I recommend having
that checked out replaced by a qualified roofer and then we'll check out the last
portion of the roof which is this rolled asphalt valley towards the front of the
house we'll go check that out right now here we have a little rolled asphalt in
this valley here you can see there's a lot of granule loss there's a lot of
cracking this foot this portion of the roof is at or near the end of its
lifespan I'm going to recommend having this evaluated replaced by a qualified
roofer here we have tree branches in contact with a roof surface and several
I always recommend trimming trees at least 10 feet away from the roof surface
that's not always possible but we just don't want them when they're blown in
the wind we don't want to be causing abrasion against the shingles against
the fascia so we're going to recommend having these trim back over here we have
more tree branches close to the roof surface going to recommend trimming
those back and on the back of the house as well
you see tree branches in contact with the North corner of the home then we're
going to look at the skylights we're looking for proper flashing at the head
wall flashing the counter flashing the apron flashing everything looks pretty
good here again we made note earlier that the flashing was curling up at the
corners here on both these corners would recommend having be sealed secured down
also if you look at all three skylights there's condensation moisture between
the glass and all three of them these are all failed window seals I'm going to
recommend replacing all three of these skylights right here and down here you
can see it's all fogged up that's just going to continue to fog up more and
it's going to be you won't even be able to see all of them eventually and here
you can see the moisture it's in between the panes of glass once you get inside
the house we're not going to do that today but once we get inside the house
you're going to want to check closely for any moisture stains on the insides
of these skylights if they're already you want to confirm it with a moisture
meter make sure it's not an active leak either way you would put in your report
that evidence of past leaking recommend repaired by a qualified roofer last
thing on the roof is the plumbing weather boots I want to make sure that
weather boots are intact they're not all cracked up a lot of times it will be on
older homes allowing water penetration in the Attic again well makes your nails
are sealed up if you find these all bleeped up with tar that's indication
that they've been leaking and they need to be replaced by a qualified roofer
these are in good shape though the chimney is normally part of my exterior
inspection but because there are roof flashing who stuff we'll do a quickie on
here we did notice it's a 60-inch wide chimney so we want to make sure we have
some kind of cricket or flashing at the head of the chimneys keep water from
pouring against it which it does a couple things I'm noting here is the
flashing improperly installed here should be inserted into the motor joints
there should be a groove cut inserted into the motor joints these are just
slapped up against the chimney cocked that's going to wear out eventually
cause leakage that's something I'm going to recommend sealing annually until we
have proper flashing installed also we'll notice there's a lot of loose
missing mortar at the joints these are water penetration these are potential
water entry points as rain can get down inside the chimney chase you'll see a
lot of that here and all over the side of the chimney here as well there's a
lots of gaps in the mortar I'm going to recommend having that tuck pointed
sealed up properly getting the side of the chimney again you've got a piece of
wood kind of like we head down below you know a piece of wood caulk to the
chimney serving as a counter flashing this is not a proper installation we do
have proper step flashing underneath but we going to recommend having proper
counter flashing installed otherwise this is going to need sealing annually
to prevent water entry and as we continued with our roof inspection over
the main house we did notice one nail pop on the on the roof here it wasn't
set properly it was actually it was actually set where it was supposed to be
just wasn't sunk down all the way so I don't have that secured make sure this
is sealed down so we don't have nailed poking through the top of the shingle
later on and this concludes our inspection of the exterior portion of
the roof thank you for watching
