Roof leaking right now?

Emergency roof leak

Your roof is leaking. Here is what to do, in order

First, contain the water inside

Buckets under the drip, towels around them, and move furniture, rugs and electronics out of the way. If the ceiling is bulging with trapped water, put a bucket underneath and poke one small drain hole at the low point of the bulge with a screwdriver. That feels wrong, but it lets the water out in one controlled spot instead of letting the whole section of drywall come down at once. If water is anywhere near a light fixture or a fan, turn that circuit off at the breaker before you touch anything.

Do not get on the roof

Wet shingles are as slick as ice, and emergency rooms in DFW see homeowners every storm season who tried to fix a leak in the rain. Nothing on top of the roof needs you tonight. Everything up there can wait for a dry roof and someone with the right footwear and fall protection.

Where the water is actually coming from

Water travels. It runs down rafters and along the top of the drywall, so the stain on your ceiling is rarely under the hole in your roof. The usual entry points in North Texas are flashing around chimneys and vents, valleys where two slopes meet, nail pops, shingles lifted or torn by wind, and hail cracks that took months to open up. If you can get into the attic safely, a flashlight during the rain finds the source fast: follow the shine upslope from the drip to the highest wet point.

Make the temporary repair, and keep the receipt

Your insurance policy requires you to prevent further damage once you know about a leak. That means a reasonable temporary fix, usually a tarp over the suspect slope, secured at the ridge rather than nailed through the middle of the field. If you cannot do that safely, call me and I will tell you what to do over the phone, or get it covered for you. Keep every receipt. On a covered claim, insurers reimburse reasonable emergency work, and the photos plus receipts prove you did your part.

Photograph everything before you clean up

The ceiling, the puddle, the ruined box of Christmas decorations, the wet insulation in the attic, and the roof from the ground. Take them with your phone so they carry a date. If this becomes an insurance claim, those pictures are the difference between a smooth payment and an argument, and you cannot take them after you have cleaned up.

Does insurance cover a roof leak?

It depends on the cause, not the leak. Sudden damage from a storm, hail or wind is usually covered, including the interior damage the water caused. A slow leak from an old roof or worn flashing is usually not, because policies treat that as maintenance. The cause is exactly what a documented inspection establishes, which is why the free photo report matters more than any opinion on the phone. And remember that many Texas policies now hold storm claims to a one year window from the date of the storm, so if this leak traces back to hail, the clock is already running.

Fix the cause, not the stain

Once the bucket is down and the rain has passed, do not let the repair stop at repainting the ceiling. Water found a path through your roof, and it will use it again, quietly, into the decking and insulation where you cannot see it. That is how a small leak turns into rotten decking and a mold problem. I will walk the roof and the attic free, show you photos of what I find, and tell you straight whether this is a small roof repair, a flashing fix, or storm damage that belongs in an insurance claim. Most repairs my crew handles are done in a day.

If the leak follows a storm, see storm and hail damage repair, get the roof repair priced after a free roof inspection, or read how a Texas roof claim works step by step. Daniel Ali is a licensed and insured roofing contractor in Plano; the roof inspection is free, and so is the honest answer on roof repair versus roof replacement.