The damage from a roof failure is rarely the roof. It is the drywall, the insulation, the flooring and the contents underneath it — and all of that gets worse by the hour. Kansas storms do their work at night, which is why the phone is answered at night.
What to do before we arrive
- Get anything valuable out of the way. Electronics, documents, furniture. Water spreads sideways along a ceiling far further than you expect.
- Put a bucket under it — then make a hole. If a ceiling is bulging and holding water, pierce the low point of the bulge with a screwdriver and catch it in a bucket. That sounds wrong and it is correct: a controlled hole is a hundred dollars of drywall, and a collapsed ceiling is thousands plus whatever it lands on.
- Kill power to the affected area if water is anywhere near light fixtures, fans or outlets.
- Photograph everything before you move or clean anything. Your carrier will want to see it as it was.
- Stay off the roof. Wet shingles, hail slurry or ice are how people fall. Nothing up there is worth it in the dark.
What we do
We get a proper tarp over the opening — mechanically fastened along a batten, not weighted down with bricks — so the house is dry before anything else is decided. Where the failure is small and obvious and it is safe to work, we will often make the actual repair on the spot. Then we come back in daylight to find out what really happened, because at night with a flashlight you can stop the water but you cannot reliably diagnose the roof.
The tarp cost is credited against the repair or replacement that follows. We photograph the damage and the emergency work as we go, which matters later: carriers expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, and documentation of a prompt tarp supports the claim rather than complicating it.
Questions we get about this
Is there a call-out fee in the middle of the night?
There is a call-out charge for genuine after-hours emergency work, and we tell you what it is on the phone before we dispatch, not after we arrive. If the tarp turns into a repair or a replacement with us, that charge is credited against the job.
Will my insurance pay for the tarp?
Usually, when it is part of a covered loss. Most policies both cover reasonable emergency mitigation and require you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage - so tarping promptly generally helps the claim. Keep the invoice and the photographs; we provide both.
A tree is on my roof. Who do I call first?
Us and a tree service, and if any power line is involved, Evergy before either. Get the tree stabilised or removed before roof work starts, because we cannot safely assess or repair a deck with a load still on it. We will coordinate the sequence with whoever is cutting.
How quickly can you actually get here?
Typically within a couple of hours for an active interior leak in Olathe, Overland Park, Lenexa or Shawnee. In the first days after a county-wide hail event, longer - we will give you a real window on the phone rather than an optimistic one.