Emergency Roof Repair in Aurora, IL

What to Do Until We Get There

In this order.

1. Get everyone out from under it. A saturated ceiling can come down without much warning and plasterboard is heavier than it looks.
2. Kill the power to that part of the house if water is anywhere near a light fitting or a ceiling fan. Breaker, not the switch.
3. Move what you can, cover what you cannot. Electronics and paperwork first. Bin bags over furniture works fine.
4. If the ceiling is bulging, drain it. Bucket underneath, small hole in the lowest point of the bulge with a screwdriver. It feels wrong and it saves the whole ceiling.
5. Photograph everything now, before anybody touches it and before it dries. Wide shots and close-ups, inside and out, and photograph the debris in the yard too. Your insurer will want this and the pictures are much harder to take convincingly later.
6. Do not go on the roof. Wet shingles at night in wind is how people end up in Rush-Copley. Whatever is up there will still be up there in the morning.

Then call. Even if we cannot get there for a few hours, we can usually tell you over the phone whether what you are describing needs somebody tonight or can wait for daylight.

Tarping Is Not a Repair, and That Is the Point

A tarp is triage. Done properly it is anchored over the ridge, not just laid over the hole and weighted with a brick, which is what fails at three in the morning and makes everything worse. We run it over the peak, batten it down onto sound roof either side, and seal the fastener points so the tarp itself does not become the new leak.

A good tarp holds for weeks, which matters, because after a widespread storm event every roofer in Kane County is booked and the real repair might genuinely be a fortnight out. It also protects your insurance position: most policies require you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, and a properly documented emergency tarp is exactly that.

After the Emergency: Do Not Sign Anything on the Doorstep

The forty-eight hours after a storm is when the door-knockers arrive, and Illinois has a worse problem with this than almost anywhere. The state has ranked first in the nation for hail damage fraud. CBS Chicago's investigation into Operation Hail included footage of a worker from an Illinois restoration firm punching dents into a neighbour's aluminium siding to manufacture a claim, and arrests followed.

So: nobody gets a signature from you on your own doorstep at eight in the evening, however urgent they make it sound, and however much of your neighbour's roof they claim to have already done. Get your own inspection, get it written down, and look the contractor's Illinois licence up yourself. Our storm and hail damage page has the full list of things storm chasers say and what each one actually means.