Roofing & Siding10 min
Storm Damage Roof Inspection in Ontario: What to Do Next
A plain-English walkthrough of what to do after a wind or hail event in the GTA: drone survey, claim paperwork, tear-off timeline, and the real costs.
Read the postroofing & siding
Roofing & siding.
Full tear-off re-roofs, cedar shake, vinyl and fiber-cement siding, and drone-documented inspections for insurance claims. We see what other crews can’t — and we don’t cover rot.
The part of your house that takes the worst weather and is the hardest to inspect. We do it properly, which starts with actually seeing what's up there via drone survey — drone first, ladder second, opinion last.
the work
What we do and what we don’t.
Roofing is the trade where bad work is invisible until it isn't. The shingles look fine from the curb, the homeowner doesn't see anything dripping, and then a six-inch patch of attic insulation soaks through after a January thaw and the only person who could've caught it was the crew that put the roof on.
We do roofing because we got tired of opening other people's water-damaged ceilings and finding the same three mistakes every time: face-caulked chimney flashing, no ice-and-water shield up the eaves, and rotten sheathing left under fresh shingles because the install crew never tore the old layer off. If you want to sanity-check any number you get, what a full GTA re-roof actually costs in 2026 is written out line by line.
Tear-offs beat re-covers every time. A roof-over (laying new shingles on top of old) saves a homeowner a few hundred dollars on disposal and costs them ten years of roof life because the second layer traps heat against the first, voids the manufacturer's warranty on most architectural shingle lines, and hides exactly the rot the roofer should have found.
We don't quote re-covers. If you want one we'll point you to a roofer who does — but we won't put our name on it.
Hamilton · post-storm full re-roof
Drone in the air at noon, shingles off the next morning.
- DocumentationDJI Mavic 3 drone survey, 140 photos, sent to adjuster same day.
- Sheathing5/8" plywood replacement on three rotted panels — no felt-over.
- MembraneSelf-adhered ice-and-water shield 6' up the eaves and 3' up the rakes.
- FlashingNew step flashing under new chimney siding — zero exposed caulk.
Maria called us in November after the wind that took half a tree out of her front yard also lifted shingles across the whole north slope of her roof in Hamilton. Her insurance adjuster wanted documentation before she had time to start finding leaks.
We were on her driveway at 11 AM with a DJI Mavic 3 and a tablet, and by noon we had 140 photos and a four-minute orbit video showing every lifted tab, every bent flashing, and the two punctures from a branch that had landed and bounced off. We sent the whole package to her adjuster the same day. The claim approved that week.
What we found in the air was bad. What we found when we tore the old roof off the next morning was worse. Three sheets of OSB sheathing — one above the bathroom vent stack, two near the chimney — had been spongy with moisture for years, long before the storm. They came out in two pieces each.
The previous roofer had laid 30-pound felt over the rot and shingled on top, which is the roofing equivalent of putting wallpaper over a hole. The chimney flashing was face-caulked with what was now a brittle bead of black silicone that pulled off in one strip.
We replaced the rotted sheathing with new 5/8" plywood (heavier than OSB, more rot-resistant, worth the upcharge on a roof we wanted to last twenty years), ran self-adhered ice-and-water shield six feet up from every eave and three feet up the rake edges, papered the field with synthetic underlayment, and installed architectural shingles rated for 130 mph wind.
The chimney got proper step flashing — interleaved with each shingle course, tucked under new metal siding on the chimney chase, no caulk anywhere. Drip edge on every eave. Ridge vent the full length of the ridge to fix the attic ventilation that had probably been the original cause of the rot.
We swept the yard with rolling magnets twice a day and once more at the end. Maria's kids walked around barefoot the morning after we finished and didn't find a nail. The roof has been on five months. The first real Ontario freeze-thaw cycle came in February and the new ice-and-water shield held the eaves dry. The next time Maria thinks about her roof should be in 2046.
“I expected a contractor and I got a flight crew, a forensic team, and a roofer.”
the drone survey
Why we fly the roof before we quote it.
A drone sees what a ladder can't. From 30 feet up we can document every lifted shingle, every bent flashing, and every soft spot in the sheathing in 15 minutes — without putting boots on a pitch that might already be compromised. We use a DJI Mavic 3 with a 20-megapixel main camera and the orbit-mode auto-flight pattern for full perimeter coverage. The footage is timestamped, geo-tagged, and shared with the homeowner the same day. Most insurance adjusters now prefer drone documentation to a ladder inspection because the imagery is forensic-grade and the file can be attached to a claim without a follow-up site visit.
the flashing
How a proper chimney flashing works — and why caulk is not flashing.
The right way to flash a chimney is with step flashing — small L-shaped pieces of metal that interleave with each course of shingles, tucking up under the siding or counter-flashing on the chimney chase. Each piece overlaps the next so any water that gets behind the siding runs out over the top of the next shingle, not under it. The wrong way — and we see it on every fourth roof we tear off — is a strip of aluminum face-caulked to the brick with silicone. The first hot summer cracks the caulk. The first ice dam pulls the strip away from the brick. The water gets behind, runs into the rafters, and the homeowner finds out two years later when the kitchen ceiling stains.
ice dam prevention
Six feet of ice-and-water shield, full ridge ventilation, the rest is physics.
Ontario roofs ice-dam because warm attic air melts the snow above the heated section of the roof, the meltwater runs down the cold eaves, and refreezes when it hits the unheated overhang — building a wall of ice that traps the next round of meltwater behind it. The water then backs up under the shingles and into the house. The fix is two pieces: self-adhered ice-and-water shield six feet up from every eave (Ontario building code minimum is three feet from the inside edge of the wall plate; we do six feet because attics are warmer than they used to be), and a continuous ridge vent the full length of the ridge so the attic stays the same temperature as the outside air. Cold attic, no melt, no dam. Every full re-roof we do gets both.
recent roofing
Asphalt, cedar shake, soffit, gutters — across the GTA.
scope
What we handle on a roof or siding job.
Full asphalt shingle re-roofs, cedar shake, metal roofing, vinyl siding, fiber-cement siding, soffit and fascia, eavestroughs and downspouts, drone-based roof surveys for insurance claims, ice-and-water shield retrofits, attic ventilation upgrades, chimney flashing rebuilds, and emergency tarping after storms. Not sure what belongs on your house? Asphalt versus metal versus cedar shake is laid out honestly here — including the Ontario-specific reasons one beats the others on a given roof pitch.
the toolkit
How we work above your head.
Every roof we touch starts with a DJI Mavic 3 drone survey so we’re quoting from photos, not from guesses. Suspected leaks inside the attic get inspected with a FLIR thermal camera so we can see wet insulation through the drywall before we open anything. Cleanup at end of day uses a pair of magnetic sweep rollers run twice a day — once mid-shift and once at the end — so nobody’s kid finds a roofing nail in the lawn six weeks later. None of this is exotic; it’s just the difference between a careful roofer and a fast one.
questions & answers
Things homeowners ask.
For a standard 1,800–2,200 sq ft single-family home with one or two layers torn off, a full architectural shingle replacement typically lands between $9,000 and $16,000 depending on pitch, complexity, and any sheathing or flashing repairs needed. Steeper roofs and skylights add cost. We give a fixed line-item quote after the drone survey, not a range.
from the workshop
All workshop notesRead more on this work.
Roofing & Siding10 min
What a GTA Roof Replacement Costs in 2026 (Asphalt, Metal, and Cedar)
Every roofing quote is the same three line items hiding different assumptions. Here's what a GTA roof replacement actually costs in 2026, material by material, line by line.
Read the postRoofing & Siding10 min
Asphalt vs Metal vs Cedar Shake: Real Ontario Roofing Tradeoffs
Three materials, three price tags, three completely different relationships with Ontario winter. Here's the honest case for each and the one we'd pick for our own roofs.
Read the postWant one of these for your house?
Tell us about your roofing & sidingproject. We’ll come out, walk the space, and send a line-item quote within three days. No sales pitch.