A roof inspection is a documented look at everything the ground hides: the flashings, the valleys, the penetrations, the eave line and the attic side. We inspect roofs across Calgary, tell you plainly what is there, and put it in writing either way.
Because almost nothing that damages a roof here leaves an obvious hole. Hail bruises a shingle without breaking the surface, and that bruise only becomes a leak once the mat underneath has weathered a season or two. A chinook melts snow into the assembly by mid-afternoon and freezes it solid again by midnight, working at seams and sealant where nobody can see it. By the time any of that reaches a ceiling, the roof has been failing quietly for months.
A strike can crush the granules and fracture the mat beneath without cracking the surface. From the driveway the roof reads as fine. On the roof, a fresh bruise is obvious to anyone who has felt one underfoot.
Chinooks melt and refreeze the same snow over and over. The evidence surfaces in the attic first: staining on the sheathing near the eaves, damp insulation, rusted nail tips. All of it readable months before a ceiling shows anything.
A gust breaks the adhesive strip and the shingle drops back into place. It looks sealed and it is not, so the next driving rain runs under it instead of over it. Very easy to miss from the ground.
Eight areas, in roughly this order: the shingle field, the flashings, the penetrations, the valleys, the eave and drip edge, the eavestrough line, the attic side and the ventilation. The surface is the part everyone photographs and rarely the part that fails first. Leaks start where the roof stops being a plain slope.
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Red Seal Certified
Interprovincial Standard
A fair amount of free roof inspection in this city is lead generation carrying a ladder. Ours are done by the same in-house Red Seal certified roofers who handle the repairs and replacements, which cuts both ways: they know what a genuine problem looks like, and they have no reason to invent one. If your roof has ten good years left, that is what the report will say. We are also HAAG certified, which is the training insurers themselves recognise for assessing storm and hail damage, so what we document is written to a standard an adjuster already reads. Backed by COR safety certification and $10M liability coverage.
Whether you booked it after a storm or before a purchase, the walk follows the same order. What changes is how much documentation you need at the end of it.
We get on the roof wherever access allows, because a shingle that has lost its seal looks identical to a sound one from the driveway. Shingle field, flashings, valleys and every penetration, checked by hand and photographed where they sit.
Water almost never enters where it appears. If there is a stain, we work back from the symptom to the entry point and tell you which one you have: something still letting water in, or the dried record of a fix done years ago.
The parts that fail first are the cheapest parts on the roof. A cracked sealant bead, a split vent boot or a nail backing out costs very little to correct today, and a great deal after two winters of quietly letting water in.
The findings in writing with photographs, sorted into what is urgent, what should be handled this season, and what can safely wait. If nothing needs doing, the report says exactly that, and it is yours to keep.
Three situations bring Calgary homeowners to an inspection, and each needs something different at the end of it. A maintenance check needs a condition summary. A house purchase needs remaining life and a repair budget. A storm needs documentation an adjuster will accept.
Once a year
The routine one. Booked in spring to find out what the winter did, or in fall to catch anything that should not be going into a Calgary January unresolved. What turns up at this stage is usually small and cheap, which is the whole argument for putting it on a calendar.
Buying or selling
A roofing assessment written for a real estate transaction. Buyers want to know how many winters are left and what the first repair will cost. Sellers want to know before a buyer’s inspector does, because a roof surprise during conditions costs more in negotiation than the repair would have.
After hail or wind
Booked after a hail or wind event, and best done while the strikes are still fresh. Hail is dated by how it looks, so a roof assessed soon after the storm is far easier to tie to it. What you get is documentation an adjuster can work from.
The walk itself is much the same in all three cases. What changes is the paperwork at the end, so tell us which situation you are in when you book. If you want inspections on a standing schedule rather than one at a time, that is our service and maintenance program.
Once a year at minimum, and within days of any significant hail or wind event. Calgary is not an average roofing climate, so an average schedule does not fit it. The three windows below are the ones that earn their keep here, and only the hail one has a clock attached. If nobody has looked at your roof since you bought the house, book the first one whatever the season.
Fresh damage is far easier to attribute to a specific storm, and your policy, not the contractor, sets the window for reporting it. Book the assessment first and let the documentation decide whether there is a claim worth making.
The most useful inspection of the year. A winter of freeze-thaw, ice at the eaves and snow load has just finished testing every seam on the roof, and the evidence is still legible in the attic.
The last cheap window. A lifted shingle or a split vent boot that is a trivial fix in October turns into an ice-dam problem in January and an interior repair by March.
If the roof is more than ten years old, yes. A general home inspection does include the roof, but it is one line item in a whole-house report and it is often assessed from the ground or from a ladder at the eave. That is enough to spot a missing shingle. It is not enough to tell you whether the flashing details will hold, how the attic was ventilated, or how many winters the roof realistically has left. Those answers decide whether the roof is a maintenance item or a five-figure line in your first year of ownership.
Remaining service life, the true condition of the details that actually leak, and a rough scope for anything that needs doing, in time to use it while your conditions are still open.
You find out first. A documented roof in decent shape is a selling point, and a known issue priced in advance is a negotiation you control rather than one that ambushes you during conditions.
This is not a criticism of home inspectors. Their scope covers an entire building, and roofs are frequently assessed without being walked. A roofer standing on the roof sees a different set of things.
Within days, not at the end of the season. Two things run on a clock after a Calgary hailstorm. Your policy sets a window for reporting damage, and fresh hail is far easier to tie to a specific storm date than damage that has weathered through a summer. You do not need to work out whether the damage is claimable before you book. That is what the assessment is for.
From the ground, check the soft metal: vent caps, eavestrough, downspouts, window capping. Hail heavy enough to dent those was heavy enough to mark the roof.
Get the roof looked at while the strikes are fresh. You do not need to decide anything about a claim first, and booking one does not start one.
Photographs of the strikes, the test squares, the soft-metal damage and the date, recorded and dated, so nothing rests on memory.
With documentation in hand you can make an informed call instead of a guess. If you proceed, you have a complete dated record to submit to your insurer.
Insurers differ in what they want to see, and your own policy governs the reporting window, so treat this as the sequence that keeps your options open rather than a rule that fits every policy. The claim process itself, documentation through to finished restoration, is covered on our storm and hail restoration page.
One of three things, and two of them cost less than most homeowners expect. Either the roof is sound and you get a written record saying so, or there is a defined repair with a scope and a price attached, or the roof is close enough to the end of its life that patching it is throwing good money after bad. We tell you which one you are looking at. You decide what to do about it, on your own timeline.
It happens more often than the industry likes to admit, particularly on roofs under ten years old. You file the report, and your roof now has a documented condition on record for an insurer or a future buyer.
A defined fault with a defined fix: flashing, a vent boot, a run of shingles, a valley. Scoped and priced in writing first. Our roof repair page covers what that work involves.
Granule loss across the field, a roof past its material life, or damage spread widely enough that repairs stop adding up. Our roof replacement page walks through that decision.
An inspection commits you to nothing, and we would far rather tell you the roof has years left than sell you a replacement you do not need. Our residential roofing page covers the full range of work we do on Calgary homes.
Partly. Snow cover hides the shingle surface, so a full assessment of granule loss and hail bruising has to wait for a clear roof. Plenty is still visible in winter though, and some things are actually easier to see: ice damming at the eaves, frost on the attic sheathing, damp insulation and staining that points to ventilation problems. If you have an active leak we look regardless of season, because stopping water matters more than a tidy report.
No. An inspection is an assessment, and plenty of them end with us telling you the roof is fine and to look again next year. If we do find damage, the documentation is yours to use however you decide, including taking it to another contractor or to your insurer. You are not obliged to file a claim, and finding damage does not mean you have to act on it immediately unless water is actively getting in.
It is worth it, because a general home inspection usually looks at the roof from the ground or a ladder at the edge rather than assessing it properly. The roof is one of the largest single replacement costs on a house, so knowing whether you are buying one with years left or one that needs replacing shortly is material to what the house is worth to you.
Reasonably promptly. Hail damage is often invisible from the ground, insurers generally expect damage to be reported within a defined window after the event, and the longer you wait the harder it becomes to tie damage to a specific storm. Getting it documented early keeps your options open even if you decide not to make a claim.
Rarely, and this is the single biggest reason hail damage goes unclaimed in this city. A hail-bruised roof frequently looks completely normal from the driveway, because the fracture is in the mat and the granule loss is subtle until you are close enough to see the exposed asphalt. Missing shingles and sagging lines you can spot from below. The damage that shortens a roof life, mostly you cannot.
A clear picture of the condition, photographs of what was found, and a plain explanation of what needs attention now, what to watch, and what is fine. If the findings point toward an insurance claim, that documentation is what an adjuster will want to see.
Tell us what prompted the call. A stain on the ceiling, last week’s hail, or a house you are about to make an offer on. We will put the findings in writing.
Serving: Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks, Chestermere. Flexible financing available.