How to Temporarily Protect a Storm Damaged Roof

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How to Temporarily Protect a Storm Damaged Roof

So the storm has passed, and now you’re hearing that steady drip, drip, drip in your house.  You know the roof has taken a hit.  When things calm down a bit (and when they get the roads reopened),  you’re going to need to call your nearest New York Roofing company and have them come out and work their magic to make your house whole again, but in the meantime, you don’t want the damage to get any worse.

You’ve already taken care of the obvious.  Cleaned up the deluge that originally fell through when the damage occurred.  You’ve got towels down inside, and buckets to catch the dripping, but that’s only addressing the symptoms of the problem.  What you really want to do is to address the root of the matter until you can call the professionals in and have it taken care of permanently.

Long Island Roofing Repairs

Until you can get the nearest Long Island roofing contractors out to see you, there are actually a few different ways you can minimize the damage and at least keep things from getting worse.  Before you start though, a few words about safety.

Even under the best of circumstances, roofs can be tricky.  When wet, they can be downright treacherous, so if you’re going to do any makeshift repairs, safety first.  At a minimum, that means wearing rubber soled shoes, and no walking around on the damaged roof.  You don’t know how bad the damage is, and the last thing you want to do is make a small hole bigger by falling through!

That said, let’s talk about the three things in particular you can do to rig a temporary fix.

1. The roof turbine – You’ve seen those little silver spinning things on rooftops before, right?  Well, they can get blown off rather easily in a storm, and when they do, it opens up a hole straight into your lovely house.  Fortunately, hardware stores carry “caps” for them, and if yours should come up missing after a storm, that’s a quick and easy fix.  In fact, if this is the source of your leak, you may not even need a roof renovation specialist at all!

2. Cover the hole with a tarp – This is probably the first thing most people think of when they suffer damage to their roof.  Almost everybody has at least one tarp, and it’s pretty well suited to the task.  There are a couple of different ways you can make this work, too.  If you have a staple gun and some two by fours, you can create a “patch” to cover the impacted area.  You could accomplish much the same effect with a big roll of plastic sheeting.  Just roll it out over the impacted area, staple it down so the wind won’t catch it, roll the sheeting to the crest of the roof and staple near the roof line for stability.  It won’t last forever, but it’ll keep things from getting worse.

3. Finally, consider roofing paper (this might be called ‘tar paper’ or ‘roofing felt’ where you live, but it is all the same stuff).  You affix it with plastic cement and a trowel.  This can work on smaller holes where a tarp might be overkill.  If you go this route, you will want to apply the paper in overlapping strips, and make sure you cover at least a couple feet on each side of the hole to prevent seepage.  

Whatever makeshift repairs you make, just bear in mind that you or the roofing guys will have to undo them when it comes time to make the repairs permanent, so don’t go overboard, whatever solution you gravitate toward.  No need in winding up having to pay more because the pros have to undo your quick fix!