Interior drying and a temporary tarp after a roof lets rain into a Dallas attic, ceiling or wall. The roof itself goes to a roofer.
Fastest: call (833) 490-5225. Or send this and we call you back.
A roof leak is rain that has found a way past the shingles into insulation, ceilings and walls, often far from where it got in. Dallas Water Damage Restoration handles the inside in Dallas and Dallas County: a temporary cover, removal of wet material and drying to readings. A roofer repairs the roof, and dispatch goes to whichever crew comes free first.
Get out from under anything that sags, and keep clear of lights, fans and outlets on a wet ceiling. Set a bucket where it drips, lift furniture clear and photograph the ceiling and the room before you move a thing. If the water is plainly coming from the roof, the supply can stay on. If you cannot tell whether it came from the roof or from a line, shutting the supply is the cheapest test, provided it is not raining: if the dripping slows once the water is off, a pipe is involved.
A roof leak rarely announces itself where it starts. Water enters at a cracked shingle, a lifted flashing edge or a worn vent boot, runs down the underside of the deck and along framing, and soaks the attic insulation before any stain appears. The brown ring on a bedroom ceiling marks the place where the ceiling board finally gave up, which can be a room away from the opening, and the insulation above it may have been wet for days.
This page covers the inside of the house and the temporary cover over the opening. Repairing shingles, flashing and decking, or replacing the roof, is a roofer's work, and the crew says so plainly instead of blurring the line. Call (833) 490-5225 and say where the water is showing; the technician will ask what the weather has been doing, because the timing of a leak is the strongest clue to its source.
Timing is the strongest clue. A roof leak follows rain, often wind-driven rain; an air-handler leak follows long hot afternoons when the system has been running for hours; a plumbing leak ignores the weather and comes with a meter that keeps moving. Where the stain sits and when it grows usually names the source before anyone opens the attic.
Keep a short log for a week or two: the date, the weather, whether the air conditioner ran for long stretches, and whether the stain moved. A stain that grows only after rain points up the slope. One that grows on dry, hot days, particularly near the attic hatch or under the air handler, points at a clogged condensate line, which is an air-conditioning contractor's repair. A stain under a bathroom or a water heater that grows whatever the weather is a plumber's question.
The meter settles the plumbing side fast. With every fixture and appliance closed, a dial that keeps turning means water is escaping somewhere in the supply, and no amount of roof work will touch it. If the dial is still, a supply line is not the source, which leaves the roof, the air handler and condensation.
From the attic hatch, a flashlight shows the rest: dark staining on the underside of the deck around a vent or chimney, damp insulation on one slope only, or a wet trail running down a rafter. Look from the opening rather than stepping in. Insulation hides the joists, and ceiling board will not carry a person.
Because water follows framing, not a straight line. It runs down the underside of the deck, along a rafter or across a duct, soaks the insulation and surfaces wherever the ceiling board gives way, which can be a room away. A stain marks where water arrived, not where it came in.
The route is set by gravity and by whatever is in the way. Water that gets past the shingles and the underlayment soaks the deck, slides down toward the eave, drops onto a joist or a ceiling-mounted fan housing, and spreads across the top of the drywall. Insulation absorbs the first of it and hands it on slowly, so the ceiling can stay unmarked for days while the attic is already wet.
In a two-story house the water does not stop at the top-floor ceiling. It can run down inside an exterior wall, along the top plate and out at a baseboard on the floor below, or soak the ceiling of the room under an upstairs bathroom. So the technician reads the walls and the room beneath as well as the stained board, and the wet area that gets measured usually turns out wider than the stain.
Big houses stretch the route. In Preston Hollow, Highland Park and University Park, where big roofs sit over finished upper floors, water entering one slope can cross an upstairs room and a hallway before it shows in a lower ceiling. The same logic applies to a modest bungalow, only with fewer places for the water to hide.
One inch of rain over one square foot of roof is about 0.62 gallons, so a 2,500-square-foot roof surface sheds about 1,550 gallons under a single inch. A leak admits a small share of that, but small shares add up, which is why a tarp is worth it whenever more rain is coming than a roofer can beat.
Take that 2,500-square-foot figure as an example, not a measurement of your house; a pitched roof has more surface than the footprint under it. At the 9.19 inches DFW Airport recorded in 24 hours on August 22, 2022, a roof standing under that gauge would have received roughly 5.7 gallons on every square foot. A roof is built to shed that water, but a fraction that finds a cracked shingle still soaks insulation and ceiling board quickly.
That arithmetic is why the second rain is the one to prevent. A small, localized leak with dry weather ahead can wait for a roofer's appointment, provided you have photographs, a bucket and an eye on the forecast. A larger opening, a storm in the forecast or a ceiling that has already sagged justifies a cover now, and the cost range for a tarp is in the table above.
Do not tarp it yourself. A wet slope is slick, and a fall from a one-story eave can still injure. Ask the roofer for a written scope of the permanent repair, and let the crew photograph the roof damage before covering it so the roofer and your insurer see the same record.
They follow the weather calendar. Winter wear shows up as leaks from March, hail and tornado season peaks in April and May, flash floods follow in June, a second severe-weather season arrives in October, and a rare hard freeze can leave ice on roofs in January. September is the month for checking the roof.
A roof that took hail in April and leaks in a long rain in August is not unusual here, because bruised shingles often hold up through showers. The sequence below is a guide to when the questions tend to arise, not a forecast, and the National Weather Service Fort Worth office posts the actual warnings for Dallas County.
Use September as a working month. It sits between the two severe-weather seasons, and a check of the roof, the gutters and your shut-off valves then costs far less than the same check done after a leak has started.
A roofer repairs the roof, the crew covers the opening and dries the inside, and your insurer decides coverage under your policy. Hail and wind claims may carry a separate deductible, shown on the declarations page. Whether a leak counts as sudden storm damage or as long-term wear is a question for your agent, not for the crew.
Texas Department of Insurance guidance draws the main line between sudden and accidental damage and slow seepage, and an insurer may weigh a storm-related leak differently from one that built up over years under an aging roof. Photographs with dates, the roofer's findings and the crew's moisture readings are what you hand over, and the Texas water damage insurance guide lists the usual exclusions.
A house in Winnetka Heights stands in a Dallas historic district whose exterior changes pass through the city's historic-preservation review, so ask the city whether roof work counts before the roofer orders materials. In every case, repair after drying may need a city permit, and Texas has no state general-contractor license, so the answer depends on which city you are in.
Roofs and mold meet in the attic. The EPA calls drying within 24 to 48 hours a guideline, not a deadline, and notes that mold may have grown even when materials were dried inside that time, so a clean reading and a clear smell both count. If growth appears, TDLR licenses mold assessors and remediators in Texas, and one license holder may not do both jobs on the same project, so testing and removal cannot lawfully be bought as one package at 25 contiguous square feet or more.
Do not go onto the roof to hunt for the leak or to tarp it: wet shingles are slick and a fall from an eave is serious. Stay out from under any sagging or bulging ceiling, keep clear of lights, fans and outlets on a wet ceiling, and do not poke the bulge to drain it.
The area under the wet ceiling is cleared and covered, power to lights and fans on that circuit is switched off, and the stain is photographed and its edge marked. A bulging ceiling is relieved in a controlled way over containment instead of being left to tear.
From the attic hatch and from below, a technician follows the water: staining on the underside of the deck, damp rafters, wet top plates and the wall cavity under them. Moisture meters and a thermal camera show the wet edge, which is usually wider than the stain.
Where weather is forecast and the opening is real, a temporary tarp is fastened over the damaged slope once conditions are safe. It is a bridge to the roofer, who decides how the roof is repaired, and nobody should read it as the repair.
Soaked insulation is bagged and carried out of the attic. Ceiling board that has sagged, stained through or gone soft is cut away back to sound, dry board, and pad under carpet in the room below comes up if it took water. Walls are opened only where the readings put water inside them.
Air movers push dry air across the exposed joists and down the wall cavity beneath, a dehumidifier pulls moisture from the air, and the framing is read against dry wood in an untouched part of the house. A cavity left open gives up its water far faster than one closed up, so the ceiling stays open until the numbers land.
You get photos, readings and a list of what came out, for your insurer and for the roofer. Replacement insulation, board, texture and paint come after the framing reads dry and are quoted as their own stage; the contractor can say which city permits apply.
Hail bruises and cracks shingles without necessarily punching a hole, so the roof can look fine and still pass water in the next long, soaking rain, sometimes weeks later. The first sign can be a brown ring on a ceiling, long after you stopped thinking about the storm. The hail roof leak guide covers the storm record.
Wherever something passes through the roof or a wall meets it, there is a seam held by sealant and metal: plumbing vent boots, chimneys, skylights and the line where a second story meets a lower roof. Worn sealant or a lifted edge may leak only in wind-driven rain, so a stain can come and go for months.
A gust that lifts a row of shingles, or strips a patch down to the underlayment, leaves the deck dependent on a thin layer of felt or synthetic sheet. The next heavy rain finds it. The leak is usually quick, obvious and easy to trace to the slope that faced the wind.
An air handler's condensate line, a pipe or a water heater in the attic, and condensation on a cold duct can all mimic a roof leak. The test is timing: roof water follows rain, while those follow heat or the meter. See AC condensate leak water damage and ceiling water damage.
A roof-leak bill follows how far the water traveled beneath the opening: one ceiling section is a small job, while a ceiling, the wall under it and the floor below make a larger one. The roofer's work is not in these rows.
| Job | Typical range | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency board-up or roof tarp | $250–$1,200 | A temporary cover over the damaged slope, not a roof repair |
| Ceiling water damage repair (one section, incl. texture + paint) | $450–$1,800 | A repair-stage figure for a single section, quoted after the cavity is dry |
| Structural drying for one room (3–5 days, equipment + monitoring) | $800–$2,500 | The attic side plus the room below it, with daily readings |
| Drywall replacement: hang, tape, texture, paint (per sq ft) | $3–$7 | Walls along the leak path, priced once everyone knows how much came out |
| Flood cut: remove wet drywall 2–4 ft up (per linear ft of wall) | $3–$8 | Only where water ran down a wall cavity and the readings call for it |
| Antimicrobial application (per sq ft) | $0.50–$2.00 | On cleaned framing or decking that stayed wet, where it suits the material |
Estimates for Dallas County in 2026. Roof repair and replacement are priced by the roofer, and the emergency-stage figure for the cover and the drying is agreed with you before any work starts.
A crew is dispatched as fast as one is available, and you approve the estimate before any work starts.
In the 1950s to 1970s brick ranch neighborhoods of Northwest Dallas and Richardson, older roofs sit above attic air handlers. A stain near the hall hatch could be rain, could be condensate and, in a house that has been through hail, could be both, which is why the first section of this page asks about timing before anyone climbs a ladder.
The October 20, 2019 tornado is the local lesson in what open roofs do. It tore the roofs off many large Preston Hollow homes, and a roof lost in minutes leaves insulation and ceilings to whatever rain follows. Hail leaks arrive more slowly; the April 2016 hailstorm that affected about 80 percent of Wylie's homes, just northeast of the service area, is the benchmark for how many roofs one cell can bruise at once.
What happens once the water reaches the framing depends on the house. In a one-story slab ranch the route ends at the slab, with wet insulation, ceiling board and a wall base to dry. In an older pier-and-beam house, water that runs down inside a wall can reach the floor and fall through it into the crawl space, which is why the pier-and-beam crawl space page belongs next to this one.
Emergency tarping, board-up, water removal and drying after hail, wind or a tornado opens a Dallas house to the rain.
Stains, sags and soaked insulation from attic equipment, hail-worn roofs and upstairs bathrooms, traced, dried and refinished.
Drying slab floors, wall cavities and framing to a measured standard, with readings logged daily instead of guessed.
Finding the moisture behind the smell in Dallas homes, and what Texas requires of a licensed mold assessment.
Not sure if you're covered? Check your ZIP code.
Hail seldom soaks a house on the day it falls.
A condensate line or pan at an attic air handler, a pipe or water heater in the attic, or condensation on a cold duct or a bath-fan hose can all mimic a roof leak. Compare the stain's growth with the weather and with the meter dial, and ask for a moisture check. The answer tends to be in the timing.
Not automatically. It depends on how long the insulation and decking stayed wet and how warm and humid the attic was. If growth does appear, Texas treats mold assessment and remediation as separate licensed jobs under TDLR, so the person who inspects cannot be the company that removes it on the same project.
Your policy and your insurer settle that. Keep the tarp receipt, the before photographs and the crew's description of the opening, since they document that you limited further damage. Your agent can say how your own policy words that expectation and whether a wind and hail deductible applies.
Where it is safe, yes: the technician checks from the hatch and, where framing allows, from the joists, reads the insulation and the deck and removes what is soaked. Where the attic is unsafe or tightly floored with wet insulation, the reading is done from below, and you are told what could not be reached.
Yes. Water finds can-light housings, fan boxes and junctions, and a wet fixture is a reason to switch off that circuit. The crew treats anything electrical that got wet as live until an electrician has checked it, and it will not repair wiring. Ask for the electrician before the ceiling is closed.
A temporary tarp is not a permanent exterior change, but a permanent roof repair might be. Winnetka Heights in Oak Cliff is a Dallas historic district, and exterior changes there pass through the city's historic-preservation review, so ask the city before the roofer orders materials. Other historic areas may differ, and the city can say which rules cover your address.
One room with a wet ceiling and a wet wall commonly takes three to five days of equipment once the soaked insulation and board are out, and readings decide the end date. The sooner the wet material is out, the shorter the job tends to run, which is why waiting for a roofer's open slot is a poor reason to leave a saturated ceiling in place.