Metal Roof Repair By People Who Work Metal

Metal Is A Different Trade Than Shingles

Most roofing crews in Chicagoland are shingle crews. That is where the volume is, but a shingle crew put on a metal roof will reach for the tube of sealant, because sealant is what solves shingle problems. On metal it is the wrong instinct almost every time. Metal moves. A forty-foot steel panel can grow and shrink most of an inch between a January morning and a July afternoon, and every detail on the roof either accounts for that movement or gets destroyed by it.

That single fact explains nearly every metal roof failure we get called out to. Screws back out because the panel slides against them thousands of times. Sealant beads crack because they were asked to bridge a joint that was never going to hold still. When you repair metal you work with the movement: slotted holes, floating clips, gasketed fasteners, expansion allowances at the transitions. Angelo learned metal work alongside flat roofing, which is why he does not hand a metal call to a shingle crew.

Fasteners That Backed Out And Gaskets That Died

On exposed-fastener panel roofs, which is most agricultural, garage, porch and pole-building metal in the south suburbs, the number one repair is fastener failure. Every screw has a rubber washer under the head, and that washer is what actually seals the hole. Ultraviolet light and thermal cycling harden it, it stops compressing, and water starts running down the shank of the screw into the deck. Meanwhile the constant expansion has walked some of the screws partway out.

The right repair is not driving the old screws down harder. That crushes what is left of the washer and strips the hole. We back the failed fasteners out, and where the hole is still sound we install a longer, larger-diameter screw with a fresh EPDM washer. Where the hole is wallowed out we move to an oversized fastener or plug and relocate. On a roof where most of the gaskets are gone at the same age, we price a full refasten, because chasing them ten at a time over three years costs more.

Seams, Ridges And Transitions

Standing seam roofs push the water problem somewhere else. There are no fasteners in the field to fail, which is the whole point of the system, so leaks show up at the details:

• Seam separation where a mechanically seamed panel was not fully crimped or has been walked on and deformed. Re-seaming beats sealing.
• Ridge and hip closures where the foam or metal closure has degraded, letting wind-driven snow blow straight up under the ridge cap.
• Endlap joints on long runs, which is where two panels overlap and where movement concentrates. A failed endlap is a real repair, not a caulk job.
• Headwall and sidewall flashings where the roof meets a wall or a taller section. These need a proper counterflashing and a hem, not a strip of trim coil screwed flat.
• Penetrations for vents, stacks and old satellite mounts. Somebody’s abandoned dish anchor is a surprisingly common leak source on metal.
• Valleys where debris dams up and standing water finds the panel edge from underneath.

Every one of those is a fabrication repair. We form the piece, hem the edges, allow for movement and fasten where the load belongs. Trim coil bent on site by hand and stuck down with butyl tape is a temporary measure at best, and it is what we usually find when we get called to fix somebody else’s fix.

When A Panel Has To Come Off

Sometimes the metal itself is the problem: a tree limb creased a panel, a section rusted through at the eave where water sat behind a clogged gutter, or a previous owner cut a hole for equipment that is long gone. Panel replacement on an exposed-fastener roof is straightforward if the profile is still made, and matching profile matters more than matching color, because ribs have to nest. Standing seam is harder. Panels interlock, so pulling one from the middle of a run means unseaming your way to it.

Color is its own conversation. A twenty-year-old painted steel panel has faded, and a new panel in the original color code will read brighter next to it. On a barn or a garage in Joliet nobody minds. On a street-facing hip roof we talk about where the new panel goes and whether it is worth pulling from a hidden elevation.

Coating Instead Of Replacing

Here is the option most homeowners do not know exists. If the panels are structurally sound but the finish is chalking, there are pinhole rust spots, and the fastener count is getting expensive to chase, a metal roof coating system can reset the roof for a long stretch at a fraction of a tear-off. The process is real work, not a paint job: pressure clean, treat rust, prime bare metal, seal every seam and fastener head with reinforcing fabric, then roll or spray the coating over the field.

We do a lot of this on commercial and agricultural metal because it can be done while the building stays in use, and because it kills the fastener problem and the seam problem in one pass. It is not the right call on a roof that is already perforated or where the deck underneath is compromised. If coating will hold ten more years out of it we will say so, and if you are throwing money at metal that is finished we will say that instead.

Getting A Number On Metal Work

Metal repair pricing depends on access, profile and how much fabrication is involved, so satellite measurement gets us started but somebody has to see the details. Send photos through the contact page and we can often tell you over the phone whether you are looking at a small fix or a bigger project, then we come out and firm the number.

Finished metal work is in the gallery: standing seam hip roofs, colored panel jobs, coated commercial fields. We take metal calls throughout Chicago, Oak Lawn and Joliet, residential and commercial, and Angelo is on the roof for the ones that need fabrication.