To Repair or to Replace?

“For a hole in your roof or a whole new roof . . .,” that’s the catchy slogan of a large Los Angeles roofing company. It’s also a dilemma faced by the leak-plagued homeowner. If you don’t have any idea how old your roof is, how do you know when it’s time for a new one?

“It can be tricky,” admitted Joe Peyton of Ford Wholesale Co., a large roofing supply showroom in El Monte. “If you’ve got several leaks and can’t quite pinpoint a source, you can end up spending more money to repair it than it’s worth.”

“You’ve got to understand, too,” he said, “that a contractor will have to charge you for the time-consuming job of looking for the source of the leak.”

Peyton estimates that a repair job can cost about a third the cost of a new roof. He said that often the homeowner will wind up paying for a new roof anyway a few years down the line.

But some roofers, like Richard Silverman of Silverman Roofing in Santa Monica say a leak or two doesn’t have to mean immediate replacement. “I go to people’s houses where the person has been told he needs a new roof. I look at it and sometimes find you can buy time with some repairs. If I can do it for them, I will because roofs are so, so expensive. And a limited budget is a big consideration for some people.”

Pete Petersen of Angeles Roofing in Los Angeles says a good roofer can usually tell when the old one’s had it just by looking. “Sometimes it (an asphalt roof) just crumbles--you can see all the waterproofing has come off, with a wood shake or shingle you see them curling up and coming off.”

The key is to find a roofer you can trust who will tell you when it’s time.