Eau Claire Roof Pros: Roof Replacement, Leak Repair & Storm Damage
Expert residential and commercial roofing services. Attic-first inspections across the Chippewa Valley, and a straight answer about what is actually leaking.
- Wisconsin Dwelling Contractor certified, with a certified Qualifier on staff
- Attic-first inspections across Eau Claire, Chippewa, Dunn and Trempealeau counties
- Written moisture diagnosis before any replacement is quoted
- Written workmanship warranty on every tear-off
Our Roofing Services in Eau Claire, WI
Roof Replacement
Before we price a tear-off in Eau Claire, we ask whether your ceiling has ever stained in late February or March. If it has, the roof may not be the thing that needs replacing, and we will tell you so before we write a number down.
Roof Leak Repair
Every leak call we take between January and April gets the same first question, and it is not about the roof. It is about the weather in the two days before the stain appeared, because that answer sorts the real leaks from the frost melts before anybody climbs anything.
Storm Damage Restoration
Storm work here has a scheduling problem nobody warns you about. The severe season runs May through August, the moisture season runs December through March, and the two produce ceiling stains that look identical from the floor of your living room.
Hail Damage Roofing
Hail in west central Wisconsin is a real risk and a badly overstated one, usually in the same conversation. We test for it the boring way, with chalk squares and soft metals, and we tell homeowners no more often than yes.
Wind Damage Roofing
Wind damage in this valley is mostly an edge problem. Field shingles rarely start a failure on their own.
Roof Inspections
Most of what we need to know about an Eau Claire roof is not on the roof, and half of it is only visible while it is frozen. That is the single strangest thing about inspecting houses here, and it drives how we schedule.
Asphalt Shingle Roofs
Asphalt covers nearly every house in this city and it is usually the right answer. What we argue about is not the shingle.
Metal Roofing
Metal is a good roof for this climate and a bad one to install carelessly, because a steel panel is the coldest surface a house can present to its own attic. The panel tracks outdoor air, and in February the underside runs colder than shingles ever do.
Tile Roofing
There is not much tile in Eau Claire, and the little that exists is usually on a church, an institutional building, or a house whose original owner brought the idea from somewhere warmer. We maintain what is here and we are careful about adding more.
Flat and Low-Slope Roofing
Low-slope roofs in Eau Claire are porches, additions, dormer shed roofs, garage extensions and the back half of a lot of older houses on the north side. They fail differently from steep slopes, and in this climate they usually fail from underneath.
Roof Coatings and Sealing
This is the service we decline most often, and the reason is the same reason the rest of this site exists. A coating is a vapor barrier you paint onto the top of a roof, and if the assembly underneath is already storing water, you have just closed the lid.
Roof Ventilation
Ventilation is the service most people call us about after a frost melt, and it is the second thing we do, not the first. Doing it first is how a moisture problem gets worse while everybody congratulates themselves on the new ridge vent.
Skylights
Skylights get blamed for more winter water in this city than they deserve, and they also cause more of it than their owners realize. Both things are true at once, which makes the diagnosis worth doing properly before anybody buys glass.
Fascia and Soffit
Soffit is the single most important roofing component in this market and almost nobody thinks of it as roofing. It is the intake.
Chimney Flashing
A chimney is two problems wearing one coat. On the outside it is the most complicated water detail on the roof.
Commercial Roofing
Commercial work in Eau Claire runs from Water Street storefronts to the industrial park, and the frame on this site is more relevant to those buildings than to houses, not less. Commercial interiors are wetter, and the vapor pressure pushing up into a cold deck is correspondingly higher.
Insurance Claim Help
The most useful thing we do on claims in this city is tell people when not to file. A denied claim stays on your loss history, and a large share of the winter ceiling damage we get called to is not a covered peril in the first place.
Eau Claire Roof Pros is a licensed, insured roofing contractor in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We replace roofs, chase down leaks, handle wind and hail work, and install architectural shingles, standing seam steel, TPO and EPDM membrane, ridge and soffit ventilation, skylights, fascia, soffit and chimney flashing on homes and commercial buildings.
We work differently from most roofers in this city, and it comes down to one fact about cold. When the underside of your sheathing spends the winter below freezing, moisture leaking up from the house does not condense as water. It deposits as frost on the boards and on every nail point, builds quietly for months, and then releases all at once during a thaw.
That melt looks exactly like a roof leak, and it is the reason a new roof sometimes fixes nothing. So every quote we write starts under the attic hatch with a flashlight and a moisture meter. If the covering is finished we replace it properly, tear-off only. If the water is coming from inside your house, we tell you that instead, in writing, and we do not sell you the roof.
What Eau Claire Customers Say
Two other companies quoted us a full tear-off for the stains that showed up in our hallway in March. These guys went in the attic first, showed us photos of frost on the nails, and told us the roof was fine. Fixed the bath fan duct and sealed the hatch. No stain the next winter.
Old house on the hill, board sheathing, tiny eaves. They explained why adding a bigger ridge vent would have made things worse before they opened up the soffit. Scope had actual numbers in it, intake and exhaust both listed. The crew was clean and the deck repairs came in at what was quoted.
Storm took part of our garage roof in July. They tarped it that night with plywood screwed down instead of a flapping tarp, gave us a removal date on the paperwork, and separated the actual storm damage from the older wear when they wrote it up for the adjuster. Claim went through with no argument.
Wanted a coating on our shop roof. They talked me out of it, explained the substrate temperature limits and why sealing the top of a wet assembly is a bad idea, and did the panel and fastener repairs instead for a lot less. Honest people are hard to find in this trade.
Why Eau Claire Chooses Eau Claire Roof Pros
- ✓We inspect attics in cold weather on purpose, because frost is evidence that erases itself. A March stain read in June tells you almost nothing.
- ✓Any quote that follows a winter ceiling stain names the moisture source before it names a product, and if the source is inside your house we put that in writing.
- ✓We turn down replacements. A frost problem survives a new roof, so we would rather you spent the money on air sealing than on shingles that cannot help.
- ✓Exhaust venting is the last thing we add, not the first. Pulling more air out of an attic that leaks at the ceiling simply draws more house moisture up into the cold.
- ✓Bath and range fans that dump into a soffit get rerouted to an insulated roof cap on our jobs, because that exhaust is being pulled straight back through the intake beside it.
- ✓Our reports name the difference between an ice dam and a frost melt. One is water on top of the deck, the other is water that was never on the roof at all.
About Eau Claire Roof Pros in Eau Claire, WI
Eau Claire Roof Pros covers Eau Claire, Altoona, Chippewa Falls, Lake Hallie, Menomonie and the surrounding Chippewa Valley, doing residential and commercial roofing: tear-offs and replacements, leak diagnosis and repair, storm and hail work, low-slope membrane systems, ventilation and air sealing, skylights, fascia, soffit and chimney detail.
What shapes how we work is one piece of cold-climate building science most homeowners here have never had explained. In a genuine deep-winter climate, household moisture reaching an attic does not condense as liquid. It deposits as frost, builds invisibly for months, and releases in a single afternoon when a thaw arrives. Then it rains inside the house. That is why we open the hatch before we quote shingles.
Here is when not to hire us. If your ceiling stains only after a hard cold snap breaks, and never during rain, you do not need a roofing contractor yet.
You need your bath fans ducted outside, your hatch sealed, your recessed cans boxed and your chimney chase closed, and an insulation crew will do more for that house than we can. We tell you that on the first visit and hand over the list. It is a cheaper day for you than the alternative.
How It Works
- 1
Attic First, Then the Roof
We start under the hatch with a flashlight, a moisture meter and a camera: deck condition bay by bay, frost or rust at the fastener points, insulation depth, baffles, duct terminations and every bypass through the ceiling. Only then do we go outside and walk the slopes.
- 2
Two Lists, Not One
You get a covering report and a ceiling-plane report as separate documents, because they are different budgets and often different years. Merging them is how people end up buying a fifteen-thousand-dollar roof to solve a two-hundred-dollar air leak.
- 3
A Written Scope With Numbers In It
Specifications rather than adjectives. Nail count and length, underlayment type, ice barrier run, deck allowance by the sheet, intake and exhaust in square inches, and the vent product named with its net free area. You can check the finished roof against the paperwork.
- 4
Build It, Then Check It in January
Tear-off to the deck, no overlays, corrections made while the roof is open. Then we ask you to open the hatch yourself during the first hard cold stretch. If the sheathing is dry and the nails are bare, the work was right.
Commercial Roofing in Eau Claire and Across the Chippewa Valley
We roof and maintain storefronts, restaurants and taprooms downtown, offices and clinics, schools, warehouses and light industrial buildings in the Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls industrial parks.
High-humidity interiors get particular attention here: kitchens, breweries, laundries, greenhouses, car washes and pool rooms all push serious vapor into a cold deck, and in this climate that assembly needs an air and vapor control layer sequenced correctly under enough insulation to keep the first cold surface above its frost point.
Get the order wrong and the roof ices from underneath all winter, then presents as a leak in April.
- ✓60 and 80 mil mechanically fastened TPO, adhered EPDM, and SBS modified bitumen in two plies
- ✓Air and vapor control layers detailed at the deck for high-humidity interiors
- ✓Tapered polyisocyanurate drainage packages with overflow provision at the perimeter
- ✓Core cuts before any recover, with the core handed to the building owner
- ✓Semi-annual inspections, drain and scupper clearing ahead of the freeze
- ✓Infrared surveys on older assemblies to map wet insulation before replacement
- ✓Interior deck inspections in January, from the mechanical room rather than a lift
- ✓Written condition records so replacement can be budgeted years ahead
Service Areas
Eau Claire Roof Pros serves Eau Claire, WI and surrounding communities including:
Recent Projects Across the Chippewa Valley
Frequently Asked Questions
My ceiling stained in March but it never rained. Is my roof leaking?
Probably not. A stain that appears on the first warm day after a hard cold stretch, with no precipitation, in more than one room at once, is usually attic frost releasing.
Through the winter, water vapor from your house deposits as frost on the cold underside of the sheathing and on the nail points, then melts in a few hours when the temperature climbs. We can confirm it from the attic, and if that is what it is, a new roof will not stop it.
Is attic frost the same thing as an ice dam?
No, and the difference decides what you should pay for. An ice dam is on the outside of the roof: heat escaping through the ceiling melts snow, the water runs to the cold eave, refreezes and backs up under the shingles. Frost deposition happens on the inside of the deck, from water vapor, and that water never touches the roof surface at all. Both are caused by a leaky ceiling plane, but they need different repairs.
Will more roof vents fix frost in my attic?
Usually not on their own, and adding exhaust alone can make it worse. A ridge vent with no matching intake at the eave pulls the air it needs from wherever it is easiest, and on most houses that is the warm humid air on the other side of your ceiling drywall. Air seal the ceiling first, open up real intake at the soffit, then balance the exhaust to it.
Does homeowners insurance cover damage from attic frost?
Almost never. Policies cover sudden and accidental physical loss, and they specifically exclude damage that occurs over time from condensation, frost, humidity, wet rot and inadequate maintenance. Filing anyway usually produces a denial that stays on your loss history. If you have real wind or hail damage we will document it thoroughly, but we will not present a condensation problem as a storm claim.
What licensing should a roofer in Eau Claire actually hold?
Wisconsin runs two separate credentials and a firm needs both to pull a one- and two-family permit. The business holds a Dwelling Contractor certification under Wis. Admin. Code SPS 305.31. A person on staff holds a Dwelling Contractor Qualifier certification under SPS 305.315, which requires twelve hours of approved coursework. Ask any bidder to show you both, because they are not interchangeable and plenty of people confuse them.
Can you install a roof in Eau Claire in November or December?
We can, and we tell you what changes. The factory sealant strip on a shingle needs sun and surface warmth to bond, and it will not get either here after late autumn, so a cold-weather install gets tabs hand sealed at the perimeter, the valleys and every penetration, and we note the install temperature on the file. If your roof is not actively failing, waiting for spring is often the better call and we will say so.