What to Do While Waiting for a Roofer

If water is coming into your house right now, take a breath: almost no roof leak is as catastrophic as it feels in the moment, and the next hour of smart moves will prevent most of the damage. Work through these steps in order. (And no — do not get on the roof in the rain. Nothing up there is worth the fall, and there's nothing useful you can do on a wet roof anyway.)

Step 1: Protect what's under the leak

Move furniture, electronics, and anything absorbent out of the drip zone. What can't move gets plastic — a shower curtain or garbage bags work. Put a container under the drip, with a towel in the bottom to kill the splash, and swap containers before they're heavy enough to spill.

If water is anywhere near light fixtures or outlets, treat that seriously: don't touch fixtures with water in them, and kill the breaker to that room if water is actively running through electrical points.

Step 2: If the ceiling is bulging, drain it on purpose

A water-filled ceiling bulge feels like the worst thing in the house. It's actually your drywall doing you a favor by holding the water — until it lets go all at once. Put a large container under the center of the bulge, and poke a small hole in the middle with a screwdriver or nail. The water drains in one controlled stream instead of a collapse.

That hole is trivially patchable. A collapsed ceiling is not. This is the single most counterintuitive, most valuable move on this page.

Step 3: Document everything

Photos and video of the active drip, the stains spreading, the ceiling, and anything damaged — timestamped by your phone automatically. Note when it started and what the weather was doing. If this becomes an insurance claim, contemporaneous documentation is the difference between a smooth claim and an argument.

In the attic, if access is safe and easy: photos of where water is actually entering, which is often several feet uphill of where it drips through the ceiling. Don't go crawling across joists in the dark for it — a roofer traces this on arrival anyway.

Step 4: Slow the source only if it's safe and obvious

From the ground or a window, if you can see the obvious cause — a limb through the roof, a peeled-back shingle section — that's useful information for the call, not an invitation to climb. Inside the attic, a bucket under the entry point and a board across joists to hold it beats any heroics on the roof surface.

What not to do: no tarping in the rain, no roofing cement smeared from a ladder, no plastic nailed through good shingles. Improvised wet-weather fixes cause a remarkable share of the damage we end up repairing.

Step 5: Call, and know what happens next

When you call, say three things: water is actively entering, where it's showing inside, and when it started. Active leaks get priority. The professional sequence from there: stop the water first with proper tarping or temporary patching that same day, then trace the true source, then quote and complete the permanent repair in the next dry window.

One more Seattle-specific note: the first storm of the season, usually October, is when every marginal roof in the city fails at once and every roofer's phone melts. If you're reading this in a dry month with a stain you've been ignoring — that stain is this page's step zero. Handle it in September.