Storm damage roof repair in Melbourne: made safe, repaired and documented for your insurer

A make-safe is not the repair. It stops a damaged roof getting worse before the repair can happen, and after a big storm it is often the most valuable work a crew does. On a tile roof that means lifting out cracked and displaced tiles that could slide, spreading a heavy-duty tarp from the ridge down past the damaged area, and battening it down with timber screwed through to the roof structure so the next gust does not turn the tarp into a sail. On a metal roof it means screwing down any sheet that has lifted, cutting away a sheet that is torn beyond holding, and tarping the opening the same way.

Where a branch has come through, the make-safe includes clearing the timber resting on the roof where the crew can do that safely, because you cannot see what is crushed until it is off. A large tree down on the house is an arborist’s job first, and we say so rather than start. Where a gutter has come away from the fascia, it is refixed or removed so it does not pull the fascia with it. If the ceiling below is holding water, the crew pierces it over a bucket so it drains rather than collapsing.

Every step of the make-safe is photographed before and after, because your insurer will want to see what the storm did before anyone touched it. That is why we ask you not to clear tiles, remove branches or pull down a sagging ceiling before the crew arrives unless there is a safety reason to. Leave it, photograph it from the ground if you can, and describe it to the office.

Once the roof is safe, the repair is scoped from the photos and confirmed by the office as a firm price before it starts. Lifted or torn metal sheets are refixed if the sheet is sound and the fixings simply pulled through, or replaced with a matching Colorbond profile if the sheet has creased or torn. The adjoining laps and flashings are checked, because a sheet that lifted usually strained the ones next to it. That work is carried out by licensed roof plumbers, and the detail is on our Colorbond and metal roof repair page.

Missing and broken tiles are replaced with matching concrete, terracotta or slate, the sarking under them checked for tears, and the courses above and below refixed where the wind has walked them out of line. Blown ridge capping is rebedded on fresh mortar and repointed with flexible compound rather than rigid pointing, so the same wind does not lift it again. Both are tile-roof jobs for our roof tilers, covered on the roof tile replacement and ridge capping repair pages.

Tree impact is the one where the damage under the surface matters most. A branch that cracks six tiles can also crack a batten, split a rafter or punch through the sarking, and none of that shows from the street. After the timber is off, the crew checks the structure from inside the roof space and photographs it. Cracked battens and sarking are replaced as part of the repair. Structural timber damage is documented and reported so the right trade can deal with it.

Melbourne storms damage roofs in three different ways, and the repair depends on which one hit you. Hail cracks tiles, especially older concrete tiles that have gone brittle, and dents metal sheets. Dented Colorbond usually still sheds water and is a cosmetic question for you and your insurer; cracked tiles are a leak waiting for the next rain and are replaced. Wind lifts whatever was loose already: ridge caps sitting on crumbled mortar, sheets with backed-out screws, flashings with a lifted edge, gutters with tired brackets. A wind-damaged roof often had a maintenance fault that the storm found first.

Driven rain is the quiet one. Nothing looks broken, but water was forced up under flashings and ridge caps and through laps that shed vertical rain fine, and the ceiling is stained the next morning. That is a leak-detection job rather than a storm-damage one, and our roof leak repair page explains how the entry point is traced.

Gutters and downpipes take a beating in all three. Overflowing gutters during a downpour push water back under the roof edge, and a gutter torn off in wind takes fascia with it. The crew checks them on every storm call and any damage goes in the same report; the repair is covered on the gutter and downpipe repair page. Chimneys that lose their flashing or crown in a storm are handled by our chimney flashing repair team.

The report is a set of dated photographs with a short plain-language note: what was damaged, where, what was done to make it safe, and what the repair involved. Photos are taken from the roof and from inside the roof space where it can be reached, before anything is touched, after the make-safe and after the repair. You get it as a file you can send to your insurer or assessor, and we keep a copy.

What we will not do is tell you whether your claim will succeed. Home insurance policies generally treat sudden storm damage differently from gradual wear, and where a storm lifted a ridge whose mortar was already gone, an assessor may see both. That is between you and your insurer, and we describe what we found without shading it either way. A report that reads honestly is worth more to you than one that argues.

Practically: contact your insurer early, ask whether they want to assess before repair or are happy to proceed on our report, and tell the office which. Some insurers want the make-safe done and the full repair held until they have looked; others want the roof fixed and the report sent. We work either way. The free estimate is over the phone, the office confirms the firm price before any work, there is no call-out fee, and you pay after the job.