Fall Roof and Drainage Checklist for East Tennessee Homes

Fall is the last easy window to work on a roof around here. The weather is mild, the leaves haven't all come down, and you can still get a contractor out without waiting behind a winter storm backlog. Most of what goes wrong on a roof between now and March starts with water that didn't go where it was supposed to.

Start with the water, not the roof

A roof sheds water. Gutters catch it. Downspouts carry it away from the house. When one of those stops doing its job, the water finds somewhere else to go, and that somewhere is usually the wall, the fascia, or the soil right beside the footing.

So start at the ground. Walk the perimeter after a hard rain and look for standing water, a channel cut through the mulch, or a splash pattern on the siding. Those marks tell you where the system is failing before you ever set a ladder.

Clean the gutters twice

Once in early fall, once after the trees finish dropping. A single cleaning in November leaves your gutters packed all through October. A single cleaning in September leaves them packed all winter.

Wet leaf pack is heavy. Heavy enough to pull hangers loose and change the pitch of the trough. Once the pitch is off, water stands in the low spot, and standing water rusts steel gutters and rots the fascia behind aluminum ones.

While you're there, check that the gutter actually drains toward the downspout. Run a hose in the far end and watch where the water goes. If it pools, the hangers need adjusting.

Where your downspouts end

This is the most common drainage problem I write up, and the cheapest one to fix.

A downspout that ends at the wall puts the whole load from that section of roof into the same few square feet of soil, storm after storm. In East Tennessee clay that water doesn't drain away, it sits. Over a few seasons you get settlement cracks in the block, a crawlspace that never fully dries, and framing that stays damp long enough for rot and fungal growth to start.

Get the water four to six feet out. An extension, a splash block, or a buried line to daylight all work. Then check the grade. If the soil has settled against the block over the years, water runs back toward the house no matter how good your downspouts are.

How old is the roof, really?

You can learn a lot from the driveway.

Curled or cupped shingle edges, granules collecting in the gutters and at the bottom of the downspouts, and dark patches where the mat shows through all point to a roof in the back half of its life. So does a roof plane that looks wavy or dished.

Get the install date in writing if you can. Ask the seller, the listing agent, or the county for a permit record. It matters for more than planning your budget. Some carriers writing homeowners policies in Tennessee will not issue a new policy on a composition roof past 20 years old, and some decline a roof that needs repair at any age. If you're buying, settle that question before closing rather than after.

What we look at on a Kinetic inspection

On the roof and drainage side: the covering and its condition, flashing at the chimney and walls and penetrations, the gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, the grade around the house, and the underside of the roof deck from the attic where there's access. Stains on the sheathing tell you about leaks that dried before we got there.

Every Kinetic inspection is performed by an InterNACHI® Certified Professional Inspector® (CPI®), Tennessee License 3187. Reports come back in 18 to 24 hours with photos and plain descriptions of what we found. Inspections start at $375, and we cover Campbell, Anderson, Union, Knox, Claiborne, Grainger, Hancock, Hamblen and Jefferson counties.

Questions we get

How often should gutters be cleaned?

Twice a year in most of East Tennessee, and twice in the fall alone if the house sits under hardwoods. Poplars and pines will fill a gutter fast.

Do I need a new roof if some shingles are curling?

Not necessarily. Curling on one plane that takes more sun can be ordinary aging. Curling across the whole roof, paired with granule loss and exposed mat, usually means replacement is close. An inspection tells you which one you're looking at.

Can you inspect a roof you can't walk?

Yes. When a roof is too steep, too wet, or too fragile to walk safely, we inspect from a ladder at the edge, from the ground with binoculars, and from inside the attic. The report states how the roof was inspected either way.

Get it looked at

Book online at https://app.binsrinspect.com/book/kinetic-home-inspections-90857aed, or call or text 423-419-9838. Veteran-owned, and we tell you what we actually see.

Matthew Peaslee, CPI®