The northeast monsoon does not create roof problems — it exposes the ones that were already there. Every November our phone fills with leaks that a dry-season check would have caught for a fraction of the cost. Here is the checklist we use on our own homes, in the order we do it.
From the Ground (No Ladder Needed)
- Scan the tile lines. Stand across the road with your phone camera zoomed in. Slipped or cracked tiles show as breaks in the straight shadow lines along each course.
- Look at the ridge. Crumbling mortar along the ridge caps is the most common entry point we find on houses over fifteen years old.
- Check gutter fall. After a normal shower, watch where water drips. Pooling and mid-run drips mean the gutter has sagged and will overflow into the eaves in a real storm.
- Follow every downpipe. Each one should discharge into a drain — not against a wall, not onto soil next to your foundation.
From Inside the Roof Space
- Go up in daylight, lights off. Pinpricks of daylight through the roof are exactly what they look like. Mark them; a roofer can find marked spots in minutes instead of hours.
- Look for water tracks. Brown trails on the underside of tiles or along battens show old leak paths, even in dry weather.
- Check around penetrations. TV brackets, solar heater pipes, old aerial mounts — anything that pierces the roof relies on flashing that ages faster than the tiles around it.
- Smell it. A musty roof space in dry season means moisture is getting in somewhere, or a tank overflow is misrouted. Either way, investigate before the rains multiply it.
What Not to Do
Do not walk a tile roof yourself — tiles crack underfoot in exactly the way that causes leaks, and falls from residential roofs are as unforgiving as any construction site. And skip the silicone gun: sealant smeared across tiles traps water more often than it stops it.
If You Find Something
Small findings — two or three tiles, one bad ridge section — are half-day repairs in dry weather. The same faults found in December, in the rain, on a saturated ceiling, cost multiples more. That is the entire argument for the checklist.