Homeowner's guide
Repair or Replace a Roof: The Signs That Decide It
What settles it is how far the damage has spread, how often it has been patched and how brittle the roofing has become. Here is how to read each sign, and the estimate is free if you want us to read yours.
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The short answer
Roof repair or replacement: the deciding signs
A roof whose damage is confined to a single area and that still has life left gets repaired, while damage spread across the roof, patches that keep failing or brittle roofing call for a replacement.
Start here
Repair it
- A leak or a broken spot you can point to, with the rest of the roof sound
- Shingles or tile that still lie flat and bend without cracking
- The first fix on that slope, or earlier fixes that have held
- A failed seal, a split "pipe boot" or a lifted course at a wall
Replace it
- Damage on more than a quarter of the roof surface
- Leaks that come back after repairs that did not last
- Cracking, curling or bald shingles across every slope
- Roofing so brittle it breaks when we try to lift it
Rule of thumb
The 25% rule
Under the 25% rule, once more than a quarter of the roof surface is damaged, replacement is often recommended over another repair.
Below that line, fixing the damaged area usually makes sense. Above it, you would be paying to rebuild a large share of an old roof while the rest of it keeps aging, so the money tends to go further on a replacement.
Age
Roof age and the decision
A roof under 10 to 15 years old is more likely to need only a repair, but age alone does not decide it.
A young roof is still worth fixing when a single flashing joint or a few tabs have failed. An older roof with sound shingles and a single bad spot is a repair too.
What decides it is the condition we find up there: how far the damage runs, how the roof has been patched and how the roofing has held up.
Patch history
When patching a roof stops paying
Once a slope has been patched three times, or the shingles are too brittle to lift, repair stops being economical.
If the roof is younger and the leak is new, finding exactly where the water gets in is still the place to start.
roof leak repairThe same slope, again
Each patch fixes a spot. When a slope keeps needing them, the trouble is the slope itself, and replacement makes more sense once repeated repairs have not lasted.
Shingles that snap
A repair means lifting the shingles around the damage to weave new ones in. When they break instead of bending, every fix tears up more roof than it saves.
We look at the patch history on the roof and quote the whole job before we start.
More to weigh
Other signs on the roof
Beyond the spread of the damage, the roof's age and its patch history, shingle wear, the "underlayment" and the permit the work needs also bear on the choice.
Cracked, curling and bald shingles
Cracked, curling or granule-shedding shingles across the whole roof point to replacement.
What to look for from the yard or a ladder:
- Cracked, splits running through the tabs
- Curling, tab edges cupped up or corners lifted off the course below
- "Granule loss", bald dark spots on the shingles and grit piling up in the gutters
On a single slope those signs may still be a repair; on every slope, the shingles have reached the end of their life.
Tile roofs and the lift-and-relay
A tile roof with failed underlayment can often be saved by a "lift-and-relay" instead of new tile.
The sound tile comes off, new underlayment goes down and the same tile goes back on. You pay for labor and underlayment rather than new tile, so it usually costs less than a new roof. Not every tile roof is suitable for it, and that is something we check up on the roof.
tile roofersPermits for a new roof
Yes, a replacement usually needs a permit, with an inspection while the work is in progress and a final inspection on completion.
In the city, those permits and inspections run through City of Santa Barbara Building & Safety. Whoever you hire, you can look up their contractor license with the Contractors State License Board (CSLB) before you sign.
Google reviews
What neighbors say about us
Reviews from our customers, as they wrote them.
Top notch - Serjio and his team was an absolute pleasure to work with. They were always on time and the most polite and pleasant contractors we have ever had. The whole team went out of the way to make the time at our home as comfortable as possible. I would highly recommend his company.
Thank you. titan roofing I highly recommend them to everybody Five stars all the way
I called Titan Roofing & Rain Gutters inc.for a quote on a residential home, and within minutes they were calling me back and setting up a same day appointment. Sergio came out within the hour and was very professional. He looked everything over and even gave me some great advice in case we ever do experience any leaks. He didn't even have the job but was still willing to help me out.
- Free, no-obligation estimates
- We show up when we say we will
- We quote the whole job before we start
- We clean up when the work is done
Repair or replace? Let us look at yours.
A call sets the visit. We get on the roof, show you what we find in photos and put the whole job in writing, whichever way it goes.
We quote the whole job before we start, with no surprise charges after.