A roof is asked to do four things at once: keep water out, let vapour escape, hold up under wind and snow, and look like it was meant to be there. When one stops working, the symptom usually appears somewhere else — a stain on a ceiling, a wet patch in the attic insulation.
That displacement is why roof work starts with the whole assembly rather than the missing shingle someone noticed from the driveway. Shingles are the top layer of a stack, and water that gets past them travels.
Is roofing the same trade as HVAC or plumbing?
No.
Roofing is its own set of materials, methods, codes and inspection points. The two places the trades touch are specific: attic ventilation, because a roof that won’t let heat and moisture out changes how the house performs and how the insulation above the ceiling behaves, and penetrations, because every vent, flue and chimney leaving a roof has to be flashed, and getting that wrong sends water in around the thing meant to keep it out.
Beyond those two, a roofer’s day is roof decks, underlayment, flashing, shingles and ridge vents. OHA covers that work and how a decision about it gets made.
What are the signs a roof needs repairing rather than replacing?
Age is a clue, but condition decides, and you can’t judge condition from the driveway.
Repair is usually the answer when the problem is local and identifiable: a handful of lifted or missing shingles after wind, a leak around one penetration, a failed boot on a vent pipe, one area of damaged decking.
Replacement usually becomes the answer when the roof is at the end of its service life and failing in more than one place: repairs returning to new locations, granules washing off, shingles curling across whole slopes, decking soft over a wide area, or a third repair on one slope.
Inspection comes before either when the roof is intact but old, when a house is being bought or sold, or after a storm where damage may not be visible from the ground.
| What you have noticed | What it usually points at |
|---|---|
| A stain on a ceiling or an attic floor that’s wet after rain | Leak: inspection first, then a targeted repair |
| Shingles in the yard after wind | Local repair, and the whole roof checked |
| Granules washing off, shingle edges curling | Service life reached: replacement conversation |
| Water at a chimney or a vent pipe | Flashing, which is a repair |
| Ice at the eaves and water inside after a freeze | Ice dam: ventilation, insulation and flashing together |
| A sagging roofline or soft decking underfoot | Structural, and urgent |
| No leak, but the roof is old and the house is being sold | Inspection |
| Moss or algae streaking, or a roof that stays wet | Inspection, and the cause looked at |
What does a roof inspection cover?
More than the shingles.
The roof surface. Shingle condition slope by slope: granule loss, curling, cracking, lifted tabs, and the state of hips and ridges.
The penetrations and the edges. Every chimney, vent pipe, skylight, valley and wall junction: where most leaks start, and each has a flashing detail that either works or does not. Then the eaves, rakes and drip edge where water leaves the roof.
The decking. Whether it’s sound, delaminating or holding water: found by walking the roof where safe and from the attic side where not.
The attic side. The underside of the decking for staining and frost, the insulation for wet or displaced material, the ventilation path in and out, and daylight where it shouldn’t be.
The drainage. Downspouts and where the water goes at the bottom, because a roof shedding onto a foundation that can’t take it hasn’t solved anything.
An inspection produces a list in order of urgency, and the difference between what needs doing now and what can wait. That distinction is more useful than a single verdict.
What does a roof replacement actually involve?
Tear-off. The old covering comes off, down to the deck: more material and more labor on a roof with multiple layers, and the step that reveals what the last installation hid. Going over an existing roof is sometimes possible and is a decision with consequences for how the deck can be inspected.
Deck inspection and repair. Soft or delaminated sheathing replaced and the deck checked for fastening. Skipping this is how a new roof inherits an old problem.
Underlayment. The layer beneath the shingles, and the actual second line of defense at the eaves and valleys.
Flashing. New flashing at every penetration, valley, wall and chimney, installed to shed water rather than cover a gap. This is where most roofing failures originate.
Ventilation. Ridge vent, soffit intake or whatever the design calls for, balanced so air comes in low and leaves high.
The covering. Installed to the manufacturer’s written instructions, which is a condition of the manufacturer’s own coverage rather than a preference.
Cleanup and a final look. Magnetic sweep for fasteners, debris cleared, and the roof inspected by the person who will answer for it.
OHA’s installation work carries a one-year parts and labor warranty on the installation itself. That’s a warranty on the workmanship, not on the shingles, which carry whatever coverage their manufacturer provides and is documented in the paperwork that comes with them.
Why does attic ventilation matter so much?
Because it’s the part of a roof that decides what the roof does to the house rather than what the weather does to the roof.
A roof assembly is supposed to let moisture out. Every house generates water vapour, cooking, showering, laundry, people, and some rises into the attic. If the attic can’t vent it, that vapour condenses on the underside of cold decking in winter: damp insulation that stops insulating, staining and eventually rot in the sheathing, and water appearing indoors from a sky that hasn’t leaked.
Ventilation also decides how hot the attic gets in summer. A poorly vented attic reaches temperatures far above the outdoor air, and that heat sits above the insulation working against the cooling system below it: with the air handler and ducts sitting in that environment every day.
The correct balance is intake at the low edge and exhaust at the high point, sized against the attic volume. It’s a design decision rather than a product added afterwards. Exhaust vent without intake is a common mistake: it can pull conditioned air out of the house instead of drawing outdoor air in through the soffits, which makes the house worse while looking like an improvement.
Insulation depth, air sealing at the ceiling plane and attic ventilation all affect each other, and a heating and cooling system that works in a hot attic pays for the mistake every month it runs.
What do storm and ice-dam damage look like?
Storm damage is mechanical and mostly obvious after the fact: shingles lifted or torn off, ridges stripped, flashing bent or pulled, debris puncturing the covering. Wind damage has a second form that’s easy to miss: shingle tabs lifted and re-seated, breaking the seal strip and leaving the roof vulnerable to the next wind. Hail leaves marks on shingles and soft metal that aren’t always visible from the ground.
Water damage from a storm often appears days later, once it has traveled. A stain that shows up on a Tuesday may have come from a Saturday storm and a flashing that was already marginal.
Ice dams are a different mechanism and not really a roofing failure. Snow melts on the warm upper roof, runs to the cold eave and refreezes, building a dam. Water backs up under the shingles above it and comes inside. The cause is heat escaping into the attic and a roof that can’t shed meltwater fast enough, so the fixes belong to insulation, air sealing and ventilation as much as to the covering. Replacing a roof without addressing those gives the same problem a newer surface.
Where does water usually get in?
Not where the shingles are.
Flashing at a penetration: a chimney, a vent pipe, a skylight, a wall-to-roof junction. A small piece of metal doing a large job, failing by pulling away, corroding, or being installed wrong in the first place.
Valleys, where two roof planes meet and the water from both concentrates into one channel.
The eaves and the drip edge, where water leaves the roof and where an ice dam backs it up.
Fastener penetrations and anywhere a previous repair was made, because a nail hole is a hole.
The decking itself, once wet enough times, and the attic, where warm moist air condenses because ventilation can’t carry it away.
Finding which of these it’s takes a look from both sides of the roof. Water is a reliable traveler and an unreliable narrator: the stain is rarely directly under the entry point.
Which parts of the region does OHA cover for roofing?
The service area directory sets out where we work. Roof styles, pitch and housing age vary across the region, so the property’s age and roof type are worth mentioning when you call.
How do you arrange roofing work?
Call (571) 485-9343 with the address, roughly how old the roof is, where the water is appearing indoors, and whether anything has been done to the roof recently. Work is carried out by OHA HVAC, Plumbing, Chimney & Fireplaces, and anything that isn’t a roofing question can go through contact.
If the decision comes down to how to pay for it, financing covers that, and installation work carries the one-year parts and labor warranty above. What other customers say about work already done is on reviews.
Roofing questions homeowners ask before booking
Does OHA do roofing, or only heating and cooling?
Roofing is a separate trade from heating, cooling and plumbing, with its own materials and methods, and the places they genuinely overlap are attic ventilation and the flashings around vents, flues and chimneys.
How do I know whether to repair or replace?
By condition rather than by age alone. A local failure, a few shingles, one flashing, one penetration, is a repair. A roof that’s failing in several places, losing granules, curling across whole slopes, or returning to a repair two or three times is telling you something different. An inspection is what separates the two, and it’s cheaper than either.
How long does a roof last?
It depends on the material, the pitch, the ventilation beneath it, the sun and the weather. What’s answerable is the condition of a particular roof, which is what an inspection reports. Two houses on the same street with the same shingles can differ substantially in service life because of what happens in the attic.
Will a new roof stop ice dams?
Not on its own. An ice dam is caused by heat reaching the roof deck and meltwater refreezing at the cold eave, so the fixes are insulation, air sealing and ventilation as much as the covering. A new roof over an attic that still runs warm will produce the same ice the following winter.
Do I need to be home during the work?
For the inspection and for the conversation about what was found, yes: that’s where the decisions get made. During the work itself, the practical need is access to the property, power and a place to stage materials, and the household is told what to expect before the day starts. A tear-off is dusty, so we protect the inside of your house first.
Can roof work be financed?
Yes, borrowers that qualify for financing can use it for their roof.
Current Coupons
- $250 off a water heater
- Free indoor air quality inspection
- Free plumbing inspection
- Free roof inspection
- Free estimate or second opinion on equipment installation
- $50 off any repair
Offers may not be combined with any other offers or discounts. Mention your coupon when you book: (571) 485-9343.
