Roof Installation Inspection Checklist: What to Look at on Tear-Off Morning, From the Ground, and Before the Last Payment

Stage one: tear-off morning

The deck is bare for an hour or two. Be there, or have the roofer send photos before the underlayment goes down.

• The deck. Photographed, with any soft or rotten sheets marked and shown to you before replacement. The unit price in the contract is what applies. Boards with gaps over 1/4 in. get sheeted; the roofer should say so now, not after.
• Drip edge at the eaves goes on first, directly on the deck, before the membrane.
• Ice and water shield at the eaves, over the drip edge, 3 or 6 ft up the slope as quoted, and in every valley, and in a square around every chimney, skylight and stack. Rolled tight, no wrinkles, no gaps.
• Underlayment over the rest, lapped over the top of the eave membrane, each course over the one below, cap nails not staples.
• Drip edge at the rakes goes on over the underlayment.
• Old flashings off, old boots off, old vents off. Nothing from the old roof stays except the deck.
• The bathroom fan duct, if it was in the attic, now has a hood to connect to.
• The soffits: the roofer can see from the roof edge whether they are open; ask.

Stage two: from the ground, while shingles go on

• Starter strip along the eaves and the rakes before the first course: a plain strip with its seal strip at the edge. Without it, the first course has no seal and the rakes lift in wind.
• Courses straight and the exposure even (the visible part of each shingle, usually 5 5/8 in.): chalk lines were snapped. Wavy courses mean nobody snapped lines.
• Offsets staggered as the manufacturer says, so joints do not line up course to course.
• Nails in the nailing strip: with binoculars, look at any exposed edge; you should see no nail heads. Nails driven flush, not through the mat, not standing proud. Four or six per shingle as quoted.
• Valleys built as quoted: metal exposed with shingles cut back and corners clipped, or a straight closed cut 2 in. off centre. No nails near the centre.
• Tarps on the garden, the AC, the deck; the dumpster where you agreed; nobody walking on the new shingles in a way that scuffs them.
• Nothing left open at the end of the day: underlayment on everything stripped, tarps on anything else.

Stage three: before the last payment

1. The ridge. Straight, cap shingles overlapping away from the prevailing wind, ridge vent continuous with its end plugs on, no exposed nails.
2. Chimney flashing. Two layers of metal: step flashing in the courses, counter flashing let into a cut mortar joint, apron on the downhill face, cricket behind a wide chimney. No roofing cement smeared as a substitute. What good looks like.
3. Wall and dormer flashings. Step flashing behind the siding, not caulked to the surface. Kick-out flashing at the bottom of each run.
4. Skylights. New flashing kit, shingles woven correctly around it.
5. Boots and vents. New on every stack and vent, the shingle above lapping over the flange, sealant only on the exposed uphill nails.
6. Eaves and rakes. Shingles overhanging the drip edge by 1/4 to 3/8 in., straight, not sagging over the eavestrough. Drip edge colour as quoted.
7. Valleys. As stage two, and clear of debris.
8. No shiners. Exposed nail heads anywhere on the field. Each one is a hole.
9. No scuffs, no footprints, no granule piles where someone slid.
10. Caulk and sealant only where it belongs: exposed nails on flashings and vents, the counter-flashing reglet, the top of a wall flashing. Not along shingle edges, not in valleys, not on the chimney as a substitute for flashing.
11. The eavestroughs cleared of granules and shingle scraps, downspouts not blocked.
12. The ground. Magnet sweep done; look along the driveway and the bed edges yourself. Tarps off, plants standing, the AC uncovered and running, the dumpster gone or going.
13. The paperwork. The roofer’s photos of the finished ridge, valleys and flashings; the warranty document; the manufacturer’s registration confirmation if an enhanced warranty was bought; the invoice matching the quote plus any signed change orders.

What to send them back up for

Shiners, wavy courses, caulk where flashing should be, reused flashing, a chimney with no cricket when one was quoted, missing starter at the rakes, a ridge vent with no end plugs, scuffed shingles, boots with the flange on top of the shingle above. All fixable in an hour while the ladder is still there, and all permanent after the cheque. Say it before paying, in writing, and pay when it is done. The contract checklist is why the payment clause says “after the walk-through.”

Things that look wrong and are not

• Shingles that look slightly uneven in the first week: the seal strips have not bonded yet. In a warm week they flatten. In November they wait until spring, which is why winter installs get hand-sealed.
• A faint colour variation between bundles: normal within a lot. A sharp line between two areas is two lots, and worth a question.
• Granules in the eavestroughs for the first month: loose ones from manufacturing and cutting. After that, it should stop.
• A ridge vent you can see daylight through from inside the attic: it is supposed to breathe. Rain and snow are stopped by the baffle.

Sources and further reading

• Ontario’s Building Code: the official page, with the current regulation (O. Reg. 163/24). Roofing is Section 9.26, attic ventilation 9.19.
• Canadian Roofing Contractors Association: the national association; its roofing specifications are what good quotes are written to.
• IKO: Canadian-made shingles; the warranty and the technical data sheets are on the site.