Most roofing companies won’t put a warranty on a repair. The standard industry response, if you ask, is either “we don’t warranty repairs” or “we’ll warranty it for 30 days.” The reasoning is straightforward from their side: a repair addresses one localized failure, but the roof around it is aging and might fail somewhere else, and they don’t want to be on the hook for whatever leaks next.
We warranty repairs for three years, in writing, signed and dated. This piece is about why we can, why we do, and what it means for you.
Why most roofers won’t
The economics of repair work discourage strong guarantees. Repairs are lower-margin than replacements. A crew that’s willing to spend forty minutes diagnosing and three hours fixing a single flashing failure is not maximizing per-hour revenue. Adding a multi-year warranty on top increases the risk that they’ll have to come back for free — potentially on a day when they’d rather be doing a $22,000 replacement.
The industry-standard 30-day repair warranty exists because it’s what an insurance company will underwrite without making the company reprice their liability. Anything longer requires the company to actually stand behind the work with their own resources.
We do the second thing.
Why we can
Two reasons.
First, we don’t repair roofs we shouldn’t be repairing. If a shingle field is at the end of its life and one flashing is failing, the honest answer isn’t a flashing repair — it’s a replacement conversation. When we quote a repair, it’s because we’ve diagnosed a specific, isolated failure on an otherwise-sound roof. Which means the odds of a different failure showing up in the next three years are low, and the odds we’ll be back on that specific repair fixing what we did wrong are even lower.
Second, we do the work carefully the first time. The Cohoes chimney drip I’ve written about elsewhere took three hours and twenty minutes. That’s slower than the industry pace for a flashing replacement — noticeably slower. Nothing about our repair time is a competitive advantage on speed. What it buys is the specific detail that keeps the fix in place: correctly-formed counter-flashing, properly re-seated shingles, sealant applied in the right places at the right thickness, everything cleaned and photographed before we leave.
Careful work plus honest diagnosis is what makes a three-year guarantee financially sustainable for us. It’s not a marketing add. It’s the natural output of doing the job right.
What the guarantee covers
If the specific repair we did fails within three years, we come back and fix it at no charge. Same crew, or one of the same three brothers. Same day if it’s an active leak, next available if it’s a preventive fix.
If it turns out we misdiagnosed and the underlying problem is actually bigger than we thought, we credit the full amount of the original repair toward a replacement. In seven years I have used this clause exactly zero times, because the diagnostic process is deliberately conservative — we don’t propose a repair when we suspect a system failure. But it’s in writing because we want you to know we stand behind the diagnosis, not just the manual labor.
Transferable if you sell the house. The warranty transfers to the new owner along with the paperwork. This matters at resale, because it’s evidence that the repair was documented and backed.
What it doesn’t cover
A different failure somewhere else on the roof. If we fix a chimney flashing and eighteen months later a pipe boot on the other end of the roof fails, that’s a new repair conversation. We didn’t do work there. We don’t warranty what we didn’t touch.
Storm damage or tree impact. If a branch takes out shingles above the repair area, that’s an insurance claim, not a warranty return. We’ll help you with the claim process.
Damage caused by third-party work. If another contractor works on the roof after us and disturbs the repair, the warranty stops. We can inspect and re-warranty at that point.
What this means when you’re getting a repair quote
If you’re comparing repair quotes and one includes a written multi-year guarantee and one doesn’t, that’s a signal — not just about the terms, but about how confident the contractor is in the diagnosis and the workmanship. A thirty-day repair warranty is the industry saying “we hope this holds long enough for the check to clear.” A three-year written warranty is us saying we’ve thought about this repair specifically enough to bet on it.
Not every roofer needs to do it our way. But if you’re getting a quote and there’s no written repair guarantee at all, ask why.
Paul Sandul, Elite Contracting. Family-owned. Clifton Park.
The story of one Cohoes homeowner and the diagnosis-first repair process is our pillar: The Cohoes Chimney Drip. Service page: Roof Repair.