Roof Inspections in George — Pre-Purchase, Insurance & Annual Reports
Written roof inspection reports with photos, defect list, and indicative costs. Used by home buyers, insurers, and owners who want to catch problems before they become expensive.
✓ NHBRC enrolled ✓ SANS 10400 compliant ✓ Workmanship guarantee ✓ Fully insured
What We Do
The three inspection types we do most often in the Garden Route.
Pre-Purchase Inspections
Buying a home in George, Wilderness or Knysna? We inspect the roof before you sign — structural condition, waterproofing, flashings, leaks past and present. Written report with photos and indicative repair costs to help you negotiate or walk away.
Insurance & Claim Reports
Storm damage, wind lift, hail, fallen trees — we inspect, document, and issue a written report suitable for submission to your insurer. We photograph the damage from accessible vantage points and note the likely cause.
Annual Maintenance Inspections
A yearly roof health check for homeowners who want to stay ahead of problems. We clear gutters, check fixings, photograph the state of the covering, and flag anything that needs attention in the next 12 months.
How It Works
- Book the inspection. Tell us the address, the roof type if you know it, and what you need the report for. We schedule a time that works.
- Physical on-roof inspection. We actually climb the roof — not just look from the ground. Every accessible area is walked, photographed, and noted.
- Structural and weatherproofing check. Trusses (where accessible), battens, underfelt, covering, flashings, valleys, ridges, penetrations, gutters and downpipes — all checked against SANS 10400 and good practice.
- Written report with photos. You get a PDF report within 48 hours: executive summary, defect list ranked by urgency, photos of each issue, and indicative repair costs for each item.
- Follow-up discussion. We walk through the report with you on the phone or in person, answer questions, and explain what’s urgent versus what can wait.
What a Proper Inspection Covers
An inspection answers three questions: what condition the roof is in, what needs doing now, and what needs budgeting for. It is a diagnostic exercise and its output is information — which is a different job from a quote, and the two get conflated constantly.
The roof space comes first. A surprising number of “inspections” never go inside, and that is the wrong way round. Inside we look at the underlay — tears at fixings, sagging, brittleness, daylight — the timber for rot, insect damage or members cut by someone running a cable, water staining old and new, truss connections and bracing, and the insulation and ventilation.
Then the covering, junction by junction. Cracked, slipped or missing tiles; on sheeting, the coating condition and particularly the state around the fixings. Ridge and hip bedding. Valleys, for debris, corrosion and whether the tiles are cut back far enough. Every flashing and abutment. Every penetration, including retrofitted solar mountings, which are a frequent cause of new leaks on previously sound roofs.
Then the water’s route off the roof. Gutters, box gutters and downpipes — falls, blockages, corrosion, sagging brackets, and whether the downpipes discharge somewhere sensible.
The output should be a written report with photographs, not a phone call and a quote.
| Area | What we look at | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Roof space | Underlay, timber, staining, bracing, ventilation | Half the diagnostic information lives here |
| Covering | Tiles or sheets, fixings, washers, coating | Fixings usually fail before the covering does |
| Junctions | Ridges, hips, valleys, flashings, abutments | Where roofs actually leak |
| Penetrations | Vents, flues, solar and PV mountings | Retrofits often create new leaks |
| Drainage | Gutters, box gutters, downpipes, outlets | Blocked drainage backs water under the covering |
| Coastal items | Metal component condition, uplift fixing adequacy | Salt and wind are the local limiting factors |
The Coastal Items a Generic Checklist Misses
An inspection template written for a dry inland climate misses several things that matter a great deal between Mossel Bay and Plettenberg Bay.
Metal component condition, specifically. Nails, clips, brackets, valley linings, flashings and fixings corrode faster in salt air, and they frequently reach the end of their life while the covering above them is still sound. An inspection that reports on the tiles but not the metal has missed the thing most likely to fail first.
Fixing adequacy for wind uplift. Whether the sheet gauge, fixing centres and clip type suit the exposure. Roofs specified to an inland standard and built at Herolds Bay or Glentana are not unusual, and that finding matters more than a cracked tile.
Organic growth. The humidity here suits lichen and moss, which hold moisture against the surface, block valleys and gutters and accelerate erosion.
Evidence of previous storm repair. Patch repairs, mismatched tiles, silicone where a flashing should be. These tell you the history of the roof and usually where it will fail next.
Before You Buy, and After a Storm
Two situations account for most of the inspections we do, and each has its own emphasis.
Pre-purchase. The roof is one of the largest single unknowns in a residential transaction, and the two most expensive findings — a perished underlay and corroded structural fixings — are both invisible from the ground and from inside the house. An inspection with a written report gives you either peace of mind or a number to negotiate with, at a very small fraction of either outcome.
After a storm. Photograph everything before anything is touched. Do what is reasonably necessary to prevent further damage and keep the receipts, because most policies require you to mitigate and will pay for reasonable mitigation. Then get an independent inspection with a written report before agreeing any repair scope.
That report protects you from both failure modes: a scope smaller than the actual damage, and a scope that quietly includes pre-existing wear the storm did not cause. Be wary of anyone appearing at the door offering to handle the claim or cover the excess — and treat any finding that cannot be photographed and located as unproven.
For everything else, annual is the sensible interval on the Garden Route, plus a look after any significant front. Most of what an annual inspection finds is cheap to put right; most of what gets found after a ceiling comes down is not.
Common Questions
How much is a roof inspection in George?
A straightforward residential inspection with written report is a fixed fee that we confirm upfront when you book. Large or commercial roofs, or inspections that need rope access for steep or inaccessible areas, are quoted separately.
How long does the inspection take?
A standard residential roof is 1–2 hours on site, plus report write-up. You usually have the PDF report in your inbox within 48 hours of the site visit.
Can I use your report for my insurance claim?
Yes. Our reports are written to be suitable for insurer submission — photos, defect descriptions, likely cause, and indicative costs. Most Southern Cape insurers accept them without issue. If your insurer requests a specific format, let us know when you book.
Do you inspect every part of the roof?
We inspect every area that can be safely accessed with a ladder, walking the roof, or a drone. For very steep, very high, or structurally compromised roofs where walking isn’t safe, we use drone photography or rope access to cover the rest. The report notes exactly what was and wasn’t physically inspected.
What should a roof inspection report include?
Photographs of every finding in context, a written description of the roof as built, findings ranked by urgency, the cause of each problem rather than just the symptom, a clear statement of what could not be inspected and why, and recommendations kept separate from pricing. If you received a verbal summary and a quote, that was a sales visit rather than an inspection.
How often should a roof be inspected?
Annually on the Garden Route, plus after any significant storm. Salt air, driving rain, wind uplift and high humidity work on a roof continuously here, and the components that fail first are usually small metal ones — cheap to replace when found, expensive to ignore. Also inspect before buying a property and before the wet season on an older roof.
How much does a roof inspection cost?
It varies with roof size, access and distance from George, so we quote per property rather than off a list. Worth saying, though: paying for the inspection is usually the better arrangement. A free inspection is paid for by the repair that follows it, which puts the incentive in the wrong place. A paid inspection produces a report you own and can take to anyone else.
Do I need a roof inspection before buying a house?
It is one of the higher-return checks in a residential purchase. A perished underlay or corroded structural fixings are invisible from the ground and from inside the house, and both are expensive. The report gives you either confidence or a negotiating position, and it costs a fraction of what either finding would.
Can an inspection find the source of a leak?
Usually, with the right sequence. Water travels along the underlay, rafters, purlins and service pipes before it appears, so the ceiling stain is rarely below the entry point. A proper diagnosis starts in the roof space, traces the water path back up, checks the usual failure points, and confirms with a controlled hose test where necessary. Chasing the stain rather than the path is how people pay for the wrong repair.
Will you quote for repairs after the inspection?
We will, but the report comes first and stands on its own — findings, photographs and urgency, separate from any pricing. That way you can take it to another contractor if you want a second price, which is exactly what you should be able to do. We would rather be chosen on the quote than on the fact that we are already there.
We Serve George and the Surrounding Towns
Based in George, inspecting roofs the length of the Garden Route — pre-purchase, post-storm, insurance and annual maintenance.
George · Wilderness · Mossel Bay · Great Brak River · Glentana · Herolds Bay · Sedgefield · Knysna · Plettenberg Bay · Hartenbos · Oudtshoorn · Riversdale
Related pages and reading
Book a Roof Inspection
Written report, photos, defect list, indicative costs. Call 073 160 7619 or request the inspection online.
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