It’s 9 p.m. on a Sunday, the rain is sideways, and water is dripping into your dining room. What do you do?
This guide is the playbook we walk Snohomish County homeowners through when they call us during an active leak. Most of it you can do yourself before a roofer ever shows up. Some of it can save your home from $20,000 in interior damage.
First 60 Minutes: Stop the Interior Damage
The roof is leaking. You can’t fix that tonight. What you can do is keep the water out of the rest of the house.
1. Catch the water
Get a 5-gallon bucket under the active drip. If water is spreading across the ceiling and dripping in multiple spots, get multiple buckets. Towels around each bucket to catch splash.
2. Relieve the ceiling pressure
If you see a bulging or sagging spot in the ceiling, poke a small hole in the lowest point of the bulge with a screwdriver. This sounds wrong, but it’s right. The water is going to come down anyway. Better to control where, in a single stream into a bucket, than to let the entire ceiling fail and dump 30 gallons at once with sheetrock and insulation.
3. Move and cover
Move furniture and electronics out of the affected zone. Cover what you can’t move with plastic or trash bags.
4. Photograph everything
This is critical for insurance later. Wide shots, close-ups, time-stamped if possible. Document the water on the floor, on furniture, on the ceiling, and (if safe) on the roof from the ground.
5. Do NOT go on the roof in the rain
Wet roofs are how people fall and die. Roofers won’t go up in active rain. You shouldn’t either. Whatever needs to happen on the roof can wait for daylight and dry conditions, or for a professional with fall protection.
First Day: Decide Whether to Tarp
Once daylight comes and the rain breaks, the question is whether to tarp the roof. The honest answer:
Tarp if:
- The leak is large enough that it will keep entering the home with the next rain (often, in PNW, the next 6-12 hours).
- You can identify the rough source.
- You have a tarp larger than the affected area (we recommend at least a 12x16 ft tarp for most leaks).
Don’t tarp if:
- The leak is slow enough to manage with a bucket until a roofer arrives.
- You don’t have safe access to the roof.
- The roof is steep, wet, or icy.
We get calls from homeowners who tried to tarp a 9/12 pitch roof in the rain and ended up in the ER. The tarp can wait for a professional. Your safety can’t.
How a tarp actually works
A tarp doesn’t seal the leak. It deflects water past it. Done right:
- The tarp covers the leak source AND extends at least 4 feet up-slope (toward the ridge) past the leak.
- The top edge of the tarp is tucked under shingles or fastened over the ridge so water can’t run under it.
- The tarp is fastened with 2x4 boards screwed through the tarp into the roof deck, not just nailed at the corners. Nails alone tear out in PNW wind.
- The tarp drains downhill off the eave.
If that sounds complicated, it is. A botched tarp is worse than no tarp because it channels water into a worse spot.
First Week: Get a Real Diagnosis
Once the immediate emergency is contained, you have time to find the actual source. A few notes on what to expect:
Water shows up far from the entry point
The drip in your dining room is rarely directly below the leak. Water enters the roof at one point, runs along underlayment or rafters, and surfaces wherever gravity directs it. We’ve found leaks 12+ feet from the visible interior damage.
This is why a real diagnosis requires:
- Attic camera or visual inspection to trace water tracks back to the entry point.
- Drone imagery to inspect the suspected entry zone closely.
- Sometimes water testing (controlled hose application) to confirm the source.
Most leaks are at flashing or penetrations, not shingles
In our experience, the breakdown of leak sources on Snohomish County homes:
- 40% — flashing failures (chimneys, skylights, vent stacks, wall-roof junctions)
- 25% — vent boot deterioration
- 15% — popped nails or single missing shingles
- 10% — valley failures
- 5% — ice dam damage
- 5% — actual end-of-life shingle failure
Notice the last one. Roof age is rarely the cause, even on aging roofs. The flashing details fail before the shingles do.
The repair itself is usually fast
Once the source is identified, most repairs are completed in a single visit, often the same day. Pricing typically:
- Flapper or pipe boot replacement: $500 to $1,500
- Flashing repair: $800 to $2,500
- Storm damage repair, isolated section: $1,000 to $4,000
- Skylight reseal or flashing kit: $1,500 to $4,000
- Larger area with deck repair: $5,000 and up
When to Call
If you’re in Snohomish County and you have an active leak during business hours (Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.), call us. We’ll dispatch the same day if at all possible. Often we can get a tarp on the roof within hours of your call, before the next rain rolls through.
For non-active leaks (water stain that appeared days ago, no current water entering), book a free inspection. Same diagnostic, no tarp needed.
What you don’t want to do is wait. PNW leaks compound fast. A 3-day delay turns a $1,500 repair into a $15,000 ceiling rebuild. Pick up the phone.