Roof leak repair and Cape Cod reroofing in Falls Church (22046)

The 1940s Cape Cods on the streets off Washington Street and around Cherry Hill Park usually have two front dormers, a steep main roof and a center chimney. That layout puts a lot of flashing in a small space, and each dormer has two sidewalls where step flashing tucks behind siding.

On a typical leak call, we pull a few courses of shingles beside the dormer, check whether the step flashing was ever woven in, and look at the siding above it. A lot of the time, someone in the 1980s reroofed over the old flashing and simply caulked the joint. That caulk gave up years ago.

We replace the step flashing piece by piece, add a kickout at the bottom of each sidewall and, where it is needed, lay ice and water membrane up the dormer cheek. Our leak repair approach is to find the source, not just the stain.

Closer to the historic church and the old town center, some late nineteenth and early twentieth century houses still have steep gables, wraparound porch roofs and the odd slate or metal section. Porch roofs on these houses are often low-slope, and they fail long before the main roof does.

We treat those porch roofs as their own small project: strip, repair rafters, install a membrane and flash it properly under the house siding. On the main roof, we try to match the original look, whether that means dimensional shingles in a slate-like color or a metal roof on a farmhouse.

Falls Church also has 1950s ramblers south of Broad Street and newer infill homes going up where older houses came down. The infill houses tend to have complex rooflines with several valleys and low-slope sections over rear decks, and their builder-grade flashing is often the first thing to fail.

They can, but they mostly change how we set up. Many Falls Church lots have mature oaks over the driveway and narrow side yards, so we skip the big dumpster and bring a trailer instead. Tarps go over flower beds and decks, and a magnet sweep runs at the end of every day.

Heavy shade also keeps north slopes damp. That is where we see moss, algae streaks and shingles that wear out early. If your gutters fill with leaves every fall, our gutter guard installs pair well with a new roof here.

• Moss on north slopes under oaks and maples
• Overflowing gutters by mid-November
• Granule piles at the bottom of downspouts
• Soft spots near the eaves when walking the roof

We start in the attic with a flashlight, looking for water stains on rafters, daylight around chimneys and damp insulation. Then we go up on the roof and check every penetration, valley and wall junction, taking photos you can see on your phone afterward.

You get a written scope that separates must-fix items from things that can wait a season. On older homes, we often suggest a small set of repairs now and a replacement in a few years, so you can plan for it instead of reacting to a ceiling stain. A roof inspection before buying a house here is also worth it, since the city's older stock hides a lot.