A couple of years ago, a tree fell in the backyard and one of the branches hit the roof above the living room.
That was a small leak at the time.
I called a couple of roofing companies for estimates on the damage. They wanted almost $1,000 to fix a 1 inch hole. I thought that was a crazy amount of money, so I decided to do the work on my own. A roofing contractor would have done a better job, but I managed to stop the leak and seal the hole. The next summer, we had several tropical storms and the hole began to leak again. This time the roof was leaking and two separate areas. I waited until the weekend and I went back up on the roof to fix the problems. I had to put a tarp over the area that was leaking, because I was on able to patch the hole on my own. After three years of repairs, I thought it might be time to contact someone about a new roof. My wife agreed that it was a good idea and we started contacting several roofing contractors in the area. Most of the roofing contractors offered to give us a free estimate on the repairs. We got three roofing contractors to give us an estimate. One of the estimates was much higher than the other two. The other estimates were close to each other. We picked the company with the best reviews, even though that place turned out to be one of the more expensive estimates that we received for the roof. The roof replacement is scheduled to begin next Monday.