What an emergency visit is actually for
The visit has one job, which is to stop the building getting worse. It is not a diagnosis and it is not the repair, and treating it as either is how owners end up paying twice.
On a booked leak repair the search for the cause is the work. Somebody traces the water back against the fall of the roof, opens the detail and establishes why it failed. None of that happens well at night in the rain, and none of it has to happen before the water is stopped. So an emergency crew closes the path the water is taking, protects what is underneath, records what it can see, and leaves the question of why for a day when the roof can be read properly.
That makes the two genuinely different jobs, priced differently and described differently. If an invoice for work done during a storm reads like a permanent repair, ask what bonded, to what, and at what temperature.
What a hold cannot do
It cannot dry the roof out. Water already in the insulation stays there and spreads sideways, and it will still be there when the permanent work starts. We mark and photograph the wet area on the emergency visit so nobody has to argue later about how far it went.
It cannot fix a cause it never looked for. A cover over an opened lap tells you nothing about why the lap opened, and if the reason was movement or a low spot holding water, the permanent repair has to answer that as well as the lap.
And it does not count as a repair on any record that matters. A manufacturer warranty, a building file, a schedule handed to a buyer: none of them are satisfied by a sheet, however well it is fastened.
When the permanent work happens
When the surface is dry, clean and warm enough for the material to bond, which on most membranes means waiting for weather rather than waiting for a crew. That can be days. In a long wet spell it can be longer, and the honest answer is that we will go back and check the cover rather than pretend the window has arrived.
What we will not do is leave the return open. The scope is written on the emergency visit and the work is booked, because temporary work with no date attached is the leak you call about next year, in the same place, with wet board around it.
If the water came in with a storm rather than out of nowhere, the roof needs a full post storm survey as well as this repair. One opening on a roof that has just taken a storm is very rarely the only one.
Common questions
What should I say when I call about an active leak?
Where the water is, how fast it is coming, and what is underneath it. Those three answers decide what we bring and how the visit runs.
- Whether it is dripping, running, or coming through in more than one place
- What is below it: stock, tenants, electrical equipment, a production line
- What the weather is doing at the building right now
- How we get onto the roof, and who can let us in out of hours
If you know the roof type or have a plan of it, say so, but nobody expects you to. The other useful thing is history: whether this spot has leaked before, and whether anyone has been working up there recently. A leak that starts soon after somebody was working on the roof is usually found quickly.
What happens if the weather means nothing can be done on the roof?
We keep working inside and go up when it is safe. There is more that can be done from below than owners expect, and none of it needs anybody standing on a wet roof in the dark.
- Water can be diverted into a contained run rather than caught in buckets
- A ceiling can be opened deliberately to release a load and direct the flow
- Circuits under the leak can be isolated with the building's electrician
- Stock and equipment can be moved or covered before the water reaches them
A roof in lightning, high wind or darkness is not a place to send a crew, and a hold laid in those conditions usually fails anyway. We say when we are waiting and what we are waiting for. What we will not do is go up to look busy and come down with the roof no better.
How long is a temporary repair good for?
Long enough to reach a dry, workable day, and no longer. A hold buys time. It is not a cheaper version of the repair.
- Fastened sheeting and tapes are holding against weather they were not designed for
- Sunlight, movement and standing water all work against them
- A hold over a flexing lap or a wet board loosens faster
- None of it bonds the way a permanent repair bonds
The failure owners actually have is not the cover wearing out, it is the cover being forgotten. Work gets held, the leak stops, the urgency goes, and the following winter the same spot opens with wet insulation around it. Put a date on the permanent repair before the emergency invoice is paid, and check the cover after any serious weather in between.
Can a temporary repair be blown off?
Yes, and it is the commonest reason a stabilized roof leaks again the following night. A cover is a large flat surface on a roof, which is exactly what wind takes.
- Sheeting laid loose and weighted at the corners lifts as one piece
- Wind gets under an unsealed edge and peels it the way it peels a membrane
- A cover that lifts can take the sound material it was fixed to with it
- Fastening into a deck that is already wet or corroded does not hold
So a hold is fastened along its edges rather than at its corners, laid to shed water the way the roof already falls, and kept as small as the damage allows. Where the deck will not take a fixing it is weighted and tied instead, and we say plainly that it needs checking after wind.
Do we need to close the building or move people out?
Usually not the whole building, and often not at all. What matters is the area under the water and anything electrical in it.
- Water near a light fitting, a panel or a socket is an isolation decision first
- Ceiling tiles holding water can come down in one piece, so clear beneath them
- Wet floors in a working aisle are the injury risk people underestimate
- Stock, documents and equipment are usually moved rather than protected in place
Those calls belong to you and your electrician rather than to a roofer, and we will report what we can see rather than advise beyond it. What we can do is work in a way that does not add to the problem: containment before removal, and no cutting into a ceiling nobody has cleared the floor beneath.