The calls come in a pattern we know by heart. A nor’easter runs up the coast overnight, the wind swings to the northeast around two in the morning, and by six the phone starts. Water spotting a bedroom ceiling. A ridge vent peeled back. Half a dozen shingles in the yard and nobody sure whether what is left up there is still holding.
Most storm damage looks worse from the driveway than it is, and a little of it is worse than it looks. That matters, because the first few hours decide whether you end up with a roof repair or a roof, ceiling, insulation, and drywall repair. Here is what we do when that call comes in, and what you should be doing before we get there.
The short version
- J. Carnes & Son Roofing answers emergency storm damage calls 24/7 across the New Hampshire Seacoast and southern Maine, using our own crews rather than a subcontracted after-hours service.
- In the first hour your job is water control from inside: contain the drip, move what is under it, and photograph everything before anyone touches the roof. Do not climb up in wind or on a wet roof.
- An emergency tarp is a temporary lid, not a repair. Installed properly it holds for weeks, long enough to dry the house out, get an adjuster through, and schedule the real work.
- Active water entry, exposed decking, a peeled ridge or eave, a limb on the roof, and anything structural are true emergencies. A few missing shingles on a dry roof can wait for a scheduled slot.
- Salt air changes how coastal roofs fail: fasteners and flashings give up before the shingles do, and damage starts at the eaves and rakes rather than out in the field.
Who offers emergency storm damage roof repair on the New Hampshire Seacoast?
Emergency work is not something we bolt on after a storm. It is the same crews who install roofs here every week. A roofer who already knows your town knows which stretches of shore take the wind first and what was probably built under those shingles in 1978. That is the difference between a tarp thrown over a hole and a stabilization that actually stops water.
We cover Portsmouth, Rye, Hampton, North Hampton, New Castle, Stratham, Greenland and the towns around them, plus flat and membrane roofs through our commercial roofing side. If you are not sure you are inside our range, call and ask.
What should you do in the first hour after a storm damages your roof?
That last part is the one people ignore. A wet asphalt roof is slick, one with granule loss is slicker, and a gusting northeast wind will take you off a ladder without warning. Whatever is happening up there is already happening, and two more hours will not change it.
The controlled-drain trick surprises people. Water that gets past the roof runs along the top of the ceiling drywall until it finds a low spot and pools, and the drywall sags into a bubble. Left alone, that bubble lets go all at once and takes a section of ceiling with it. One small hole at the bottom of the sag turns a ceiling replacement into a patch and a coat of paint.
Photograph the ceiling, the attic if you can reach it safely, and the yard where shingles landed. Do it before the tarp goes on, because once a tarp is down the adjuster is looking at a covered roof and taking your word for what is under it.
How does emergency roof tarping work, and how long does it hold?
We run tarp over the ridge whenever the damage sits near the top of a slope, for a simple reason. Water finds the top edge. A tarp that stops partway up a slope leaves a seam facing uphill, and the next rain runs straight under it. Carrying the material over the ridge and down the far side takes that seam out of the equation. Where the roof is too big or too cut up for that, the top edge gets tucked under the course above and battened down so it cannot lift.
Fastening is the other thing that separates a working tarp from a noisy one. Tarps fail in wind because somebody nailed through the grommets, and grommets tear. We sandwich the material under furring strips and fasten through the strips so the load spreads across the wood. That does put fasteners into your roof, in the area already being replaced, and we note where they went.
What kind of storm damage actually counts as an emergency?
We would rather take the call and tell you it can wait than have you decide that yourself and get it wrong. Water coming in is always urgent, because the bill climbs by the hour once insulation is soaked. Exposed decking is urgent because the next rain does not need to be dramatic to do harm. A lifted edge is urgent because edges are where wind gets its grip. A limb on the roof is urgent whether or not you can see damage, because the weight is doing something you cannot judge from the ground.
Missing shingles on a dry roof, a bent gutter, or a vent cap in the yard are all worth getting on the calendar quickly. They are not worth a two in the morning response, and a roofer who insists otherwise is selling urgency.
Why does Seacoast storm damage look different from inland damage?
Drive twenty miles west and the same roof ages differently. Out there the shingles give up first, sun-baked and curling in the field. Here they often still look serviceable while the nails holding them have rusted thin, the drip edge has gone chalky, and the step flashing at a chimney flexes when you press it. The roof passes a casual look and fails a storm.
So on a storm call we pull an edge and look underneath instead of counting missing shingles from the lawn. A roof that lost six shingles at the rake in a forty mile per hour gust is telling you something about the several hundred still up there. We went deeper on that in our post on wind damage on coastal homes, and it is why our Seacoast roof inspections spend most of their time at the perimeter. Gutters take the same beating and get overlooked because they are not leaking indoors, so if yours moved, say so when you call and we will look at the gutters and leaf guards while we are there.
What happens after the emergency repair?
We will tell you which it is even when the repair is the smaller job. A patched slope on a roof with four good years left is a fine outcome. A patched slope on a roof that has been failing since 2009 buys one winter, and you should hear that from us in September rather than find out in February.
If it does turn into a replacement, the process is the one we walk every homeowner through in our guide to planning a roof replacement, and everything we install is laid out on our roofing services page. On cost, we do not quote roofs over the phone and we do not publish numbers, because a number without a look at your roof is a guess dressed up as information. Estimates are free, and if the timing is hard we have financing options.
How do you avoid the storm chasers who show up after a big blow?
After a real storm the Seacoast fills with out of state plates, and some of those crews are perfectly competent. The problem is not skill, it is the warranty. Workmanship coverage is worth exactly the odds of somebody answering the phone in eight years, and a company chasing weather from state to state is not built to take that call. As for the deductible offer, anyone proposing to make it disappear is proposing to misrepresent the job to your insurer, and your name is the one on the claim.
You have time to check. A properly installed tarp buys days to make a good decision instead of minutes to make a fast one, and that is the point of the emergency call. If water is coming in, or something on your roof is not where it was last night, call us. We will tell you honestly whether it needs a truck tonight or a slot next week, and get the house dry either way.
Do you really answer the phone at night on the NH Seacoast?
Yes. Storm calls come in at every hour and we take them at every hour. What you get overnight is a real conversation with somebody who roofs here, not a voicemail box. Depending on what you describe and what the weather is doing, that call ends with a truck heading out or with a plan to get you through safely until morning.
Will my insurance cover emergency roof tarping?
Most homeowner policies cover reasonable emergency measures taken to prevent further damage, and emergency tarping is the textbook example. Policies differ, so confirm with your carrier, and keep your photos and our documentation. We put in writing what we found and what we did, which is the paperwork adjusters actually want.
Should I file an insurance claim for storm damage to my roof?
It depends on the size of the damage against your deductible, and it is your call rather than ours. What we can do is document what happened thoroughly enough that you decide with real information. For small, isolated damage on an otherwise healthy roof, plenty of homeowners choose to handle the repair directly instead of opening a claim.
How fast can you get to my house after a storm?
Same day in most cases, and often within hours. The exception is a storm still in progress, because nobody should be on a roof in high wind, including us. When that happens we say so plainly, help you control water from the inside over the phone, and come out the moment it is safe to work.
Can you tarp a flat or rubber commercial roof in an emergency?
Yes, though the method is different. Flat and low slope roofs get a membrane patch or a temporary seal over the breach rather than a tarp run over a ridge, because there is no ridge to run over and standing water behaves differently than runoff. We handle emergency work on EPDM, TPO, and modified bitumen roofs on Seacoast commercial buildings.
