Repair prices, and the point where repairing stops being the cheaper option

A roof repair is cheap compared with a replacement right up until the roof is old enough that you are buying months rather than years. Knowing which side of that line you are on is most of the decision.

Brown water staining spreading across a white interior ceiling below a roof penetration, paint blistered along the edge of the stain

The figures

Job	Typical price	Notes
Inspection with photographs	$0 – $195	Free when repair follows
Written report for a claim	$180 – $380	Dated, slope by slope, itemised
Vent boot replacement	$240 – $460	Per penetration; commonest leak here
Flashing repair at a wall	$380 – $900	Per run
Chimney flashing and counterflashing	$620 – $1,600	Size and condition dependent
Valley repair	$520 – $1,300	Per valley
Wind-damaged section of shingles	$480 – $1,400	Includes the loose courses around it
Emergency tarp	$380 – $900	By area covered
Decking replacement, per sheet	$160 – $290	Permit and nailing inspection if required
Metal fastener campaign	$2,400 – $5,200	Whole roof, upsized screws and washers

What moves the number

Access. A single-storey slab house and a two-storey pier-built house in Waveland are different jobs for the same repair. Height, pitch and how materials get up there are real costs.

Whether the deck is wet. A leak found in month one is a boot. The same leak in year two has soaked decking that now needs replacing, plus insulation and possibly ceiling. The repair has not changed; what it sits on has.

Matching. Shingle colours weather and lines get discontinued. On a visible slope a close-but-not-exact match can push you toward doing the whole slope, which changes the figure substantially.

How many things are wrong. Three separate repairs on one visit cost far less than three visits, because the mobilisation is the expensive part. If an inspection finds several items, doing them together is genuinely cheaper rather than an upsell.

When repair stops being the right answer

Three tests, standing in the garden with the photographs.

Age against expectancy. An architectural shingle roof here gets twenty to twenty-five years. At year twenty-two, a $900 repair is buying months.
Number of leaks. One leak is a defect. Three separate leaks in different places is a roof whose seal strips and penetrations are all reaching the end together.
Granule loss. Bare patches, and granules collecting at the downpipe outlets, mean the shingle has lost its UV protection and is now aging fast. That is terminal rather than repairable.

Any one of those on its own is a judgement call. Two of the three and the repair money is better put toward a replacement.

Repair or claim

Compare the figure against your deductible before filing anything. Coastal wind and hail deductibles are frequently a percentage of the insured value rather than a flat sum, so a $600 boot replacement against a $3,000 deductible is a bill rather than a claim. Storm damage across several slopes usually is worth claiming. Documenting it costs nothing either way — see the claims guide.

Common questions

Is the inspection really free?

The standard inspection is, when repair or replacement follows. What is charged for is the written report — a dated, slope-by-slope, itemised document for a claim, a purchase or a lender, which takes a couple of hours to produce properly and is a deliverable in itself.

Can you give a price over the phone?

A range, often a fairly tight one if you can describe what is happening. An exact figure, no — anyone who gives you one has not seen your roof, and that number will move once they do. What we will not do is quote low on the phone and discover extras once the ladder is up.

Why did my neighbour pay less for the same repair?

Usually access, the extent of what was actually wrong, or whether decking was involved. A repair on a single-storey slab house and the same repair on a two-storey raised house are different jobs. If the gap seems unexplainable, ask for the itemised breakdown and compare line by line.

Is it worth repairing a twenty-year-old roof?

Only to buy specific, bounded time — getting through a season, or holding until a planned replacement. If the answer to 'how long will this buy me' is 'a year or two', spend it. If it is 'a few months', put it toward the replacement instead, and we will tell you which it is.

Should I fix it myself?

Clearing gutters and valleys, yes. Anything that involves being on a roof in this climate, generally not — the pitch, the heat and the fragility of an aged shingle are all worse than they look from the ground. Falls during DIY roof work are common on this coast every storm season.