Buying a House That Already Has a Metal Roof

You are viewing a house, the roof is metal, and the listing describes it as recently done. That could mean the biggest maintenance item on the property is settled for decades, or it could mean somebody covered an old roof quickly before selling. From the driveway, those look identical.

Here is how to tell them apart.

What to look at from the ground

You can learn a surprising amount without a ladder. Walk the perimeter and look up.

• Are the lines straight? Sight along the ridge and the eaves. Waviness usually means the deck underneath is uneven, which means it was not properly inspected or repaired.
• Look at the flashings. Chimneys, vents, skylights and any place the roof meets a wall. Neat, purpose-made metal is a good sign. Visible sealant doing structural work is not.
• Check the eavestroughs. Sagging runs, gaps at the joints, or gutters pulling away from the fascia suggest either poor fixing or snow arriving on them without control.
• Are there snow guards? If there are doorways, decks or a lower roof under a slope and no snow guards anywhere, somebody was not thinking about winter.
• Look at the soffits. Stained, sagging or blocked soffits tell you about ventilation, and ventilation tells you about the roof's real life expectancy.

What to look at inside

The attic is more informative than the roof. Take a torch.

• Look at the underside of the deck. Dark staining, streaking or a musty smell means moisture has been sitting there. That is a ventilation problem and it does not fix itself.
• Check the eaves. If insulation has been pushed into them and blocked the intake vents, the roof cannot breathe regardless of what is on top.
• Look for daylight. Where it should not be.
• Check ceilings on the top floor. Especially in corners and near chimneys. Fresh paint in one patch of one ceiling is worth asking about.

What to ask the seller for

These are reasonable requests and the answers are revealing.

• Who installed it, and in what year?
• Is there an invoice describing the work, and does it mention the deck?
• Was the old roof stripped, or was this installed over the existing shingles?
• Are there material warranties, and do they transfer to a new owner?
• Is there a workmanship warranty, and is the installer still trading?

The stripped-or-covered question is the important one. Going over shingles is legitimate where the deck is sound, but you want to know which you are buying, and whether anyone actually established that the deck was sound at the time.

The transferable warranty question

A long material warranty is only useful to you if it comes with the house. Many transfer; some require registration within a window; some end when the original owner sells. Ask for the document rather than the reassurance, and check what it says about transfer specifically.

When to get somebody up there

If the ground-level check throws up anything, or if the house matters enough to you, get a roofer to look properly before you close. It is a small cost against the purchase and it is the last moment when the information is worth anything in a negotiation.

Highland will assess a metal roof somebody else installed. If you are buying in the Greater Toronto Area or cottage country and want a straight answer about what is up there, get in touch.