Emergency roof repair in Victoria: what to do in the first hour

In Greater Victoria a roof emergency almost always arrives with a southeasterly between October and February, and it arrives for everyone at once. The same storm that lifts your ridge cap is dropping fir limbs in Metchosin and the Highlands, so every crew in the region is on tarps for days. That is why the useful call is an early one that asks for a temporary cover, not a late one that asks for a repair.

We checked the websites of eight Greater Victoria roofing companies that advertise emergency work and found no published price on any of them. Some state 24-hour service and some state emergency or after-hours service, which is not the same promise. The companies on our list that state it are marked, and the difference is worth asking about on the phone: does someone answer at night, and does a crew come at night, or the next morning?

In our pricing model a fitted temporary cover is $300 to $800 before GST, and any crew visit carries a minimum charge of roughly $350 to $500, which is usually credited against the repair when the same contractor does both. Those are daytime figures. What is added for a night, a weekend or a storm week is not published by any Greater Victoria roofer we could find, so treat any number you read online as a guess.

A national guide that sells contractor leads says winter emergency call-outs often carry a premium over the standard rate, and that is consistent with how after-hours work is priced in every trade. The practical step is to ask three questions before you agree: what is the call-out fee, what is the hourly or fixed price for the cover, and is either credited against the repair.

This part is law, not advice. The statutory conditions that apply to property insurance in British Columbia say that after a loss the insured must take all reasonable steps to prevent further loss or damage, and that the insurer must contribute on a prorated basis to reasonable and proper expenses of doing so. They also require you to give the insurer notice of the loss. A temporary cover is the textbook example of a reasonable step, which is why the receipt for it belongs in the claim.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the same thing in plainer words: protect the property from further damage if it is safe to do so, place tarps over a damaged roof, and hire a qualified professional if it is unsafe to do it yourself. Keep the receipts.

Home policies are written for sudden events. The Insurance Bureau of Canada says most policies cover water that enters through openings caused by wind or hail, and insurers describe slow leaks, repeated seepage and wear as not covered. So a limb through the roof in a storm and a stain that has been growing since last winter are treated very differently, even when the water on the floor looks the same.

Two cautions. Cover for water entering through the roof is sold by at least one BC insurer as an optional extra rather than as part of the standard policy, so check your own wording rather than assuming. And on an older roof a claim may be settled at depreciated value, which can make a small repair not worth claiming once the deductible is counted.

The instinct is to climb up and look. Roofing bodies and shingle manufacturers all say the same thing to homeowners: stay on the ladder and off the roof. A wet roof is slippery, a mossy one more so, and the damaged area is the part least able to carry weight. WorkSafeBC treats falls from elevation as one of the most serious hazards for the people who do this for a living.

Everything a roofer needs from you can be gathered from the ground and from the attic hatch: which room, which slope, what you can see from the street, and whether anything has come off the roof and landed in the yard.

A temporary cover buys time to make a decision in daylight. A leak does not by itself mean the roof needs replacing; a loose flashing or one damaged section is a repair. Whether it is worth repairing depends on the age of the roof and how much of it is affected, and our repair-or-replace tool walks through that with your numbers. If the roof is past 15 years and the damage is across several slopes, get replacement quotes as well as a repair price before you commit to either.