About six weeks ago, a huge rain storm exposed a leak in the roof over my living room soaking the sheet rock ceiling. I got a couple estimates to have the roof repaired, and everyone who showed up either 1) Looked and talked like they would deliver substandard work, and/or 2) wanted stupid money for the repair ($1,200 to $2,000). So I told the wife, I've had it with these clowns, I'm going to do it myself. She rolled her eyes as normal given she knew that would be my decision all along.

Leak Identification

I crawled my 6'2", 235 pound, 56 year old self through the attic for a half hour and finally found the source of the leak. Ultimately, it was a result of really lousy work done 14 years ago when the roof was replaced. The leak was in two truss bays, so the extent of the repair increased.





Tear Off and Repair

Long story short, the more I tore off, the more damage I found. What I thought was a small leak became quite a repair. Since one of the leaks I found was directly over a truss and had caused a bit of water damage to the top of it, I sistered the truss on both sides with a pair of eight foot 2x4's, and added blocking to nail my repair sheets to. Overkill? Yes. But that's the way I roll (and it cost me nothing given I had the 2x4 lumber in my workshop). I replaced every bit of wood that showed any discoloring or damage, and then used rolled peel and stick underlay to seal the entire area (and then some around it). Then all the seems against the vertical wall and valley were further sealed using a bucket of roof adhesive. Unfortunately I forgot to take some pics of the installed peel and stick.











Shingling and Finish

Bought two bundles of shingles and went to work. Unfortunately the shingles on the house are 14 years old and no longer available, so I was stuck with using the best color match I could find. I wish it matched better, but its not horrible, and given the amount of shade that's on the roof throughout the day, it doesn't stand out too badly.





Summary

'My' roof repair ended up costing me a few days of my time and ~$250. And I guarantee the estimate the roofers gave me would have gone up as they exposed the additional damage I found. All in all I likely saved $1,800 - $2,000+ doing it myself. We've had several days of heavy rain since the repair was completed, and I've not found any leakage anywhere in the attic.

I also did the repair to the living room ceiling which was quoted for me at $700-$800, which included repairing the sheet rock, texturing the area, priming, and painting the entire living room ceiling to insure a good match. That repair cost me about $100 in materials to complete, and no one has been able to find the repaired area even after I've pointed it out to them. No pics of that repair since my camera simply reflects a big white area with no definition.

So all in all, everything is repaired, looks good, I saved maybe $2,500+ total on everything, and my knees and back hurt me for a solid 10 days afterward. I think this is probably the last roofing repair I'll ever do, but I'm proud of my work on this one.

Looks good!

Nice job. There’s always a certain satisfaction in knowing the job was done correctly because you did it.

Well done!

Wow! That is a skill that I wish I have (should I need to make such repair someday to my roof). You definitely saved a lot of money. But the BEST part is you know the repair was done to YOUR standard. No one cut corner to do the job cheaper and faster. And you are absolutely correct. They would have charged you more once they discover more water damage underneath.

You did a great job there bigdeal.

Turned out great! And I know the feeling of sore back and knees!

Well done ✔

You're hired!
And now you can bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.
So what are you going to buy w/ the $2k you saved earned?

What new tools did you get? Never pass up a chance to justify new tools.

Way to go!

I trust Ms Bigdeal sufficiently rewarded your efforts?

Nice job!

Looks very good and I would have done the same when I was about 40, but not at 65!!

That's awesome to have those skills, great job on saving that money by doing it yourself.

Well done! I could do the external easily enough (outside of the whole February in Wisconsin thing), but I hate sheetrock work with a passion born of incompetence, and would hire that done in a second.

Good work! Would this have been a repair that would be covered by insurance?

Nicely done!

I work for a roofing company and we would love to hire you.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Long story short, the more I tore off, the more damage I found. What I thought was a small leak became quite a repair.

Always has been, always will be.

quote:

Originally posted by sasquatch28:
Good work! Would this have been a repair that would be covered by insurance?

Yes, the repair could have been covered under my homeowners policy, but my deductible would have been higher than my out of pocket costs to do the repair myself. Additionally, since I'm not a licensed contractor, the insurance company would not pay out anything to me on it. So if I'd gone the insurance coverage route, the repair would have...

• Cost me more out of pocket
• Resulted in an insurance premium increase on my next homeowners policy renewal.
• Been done by someone in my opinion who couldn't deliver the quality of the work I expect.

As such, I ate the small cost out of pocket and did the work myself.

Good job.

My first house, the roof needed replacing. After getting 3 quotes, I decided to do it myself, with help from my wife. I read a couple of books, hired a crew for the tear-off. Bought the materials and built it. It never leaked in my 11 years there, we did a good job. We saved thousands of dollars, but that roof was my first and last. I was young back then, could never do it now.