Final Roof Quality Inspection and Photo Record

Purpose

This procedure does two things at once: a last chance to find a defect while the crew and the material are still on site, and a photo record the shop can hand to a manufacturer, an adjuster or a homeowner three years from now. A roof that leaks in year two is not argued with opinions. It is argued with what somebody photographed on the day, and a shop that cannot produce that file pays for the answer either way.

The trap is thinking the record gets made now. Everything under the covering was photographed by earlier steps. This pass assembles those, names what is missing, and adds the finished set on top. Photographs taken only at the end prove exactly one thing: the outside looked fine.

Scope

Covers the final quality walk and the assembled photo record for residential and small commercial steep-slope reroofs and large repairs: covering, terminations, ventilation openings, ground condition, the customer walk, and filing.

Does not cover the pre-sale condition inspection or the storm-damage documentation set, both their own SOPs. Does not cover the magnet-sweep procedure itself, owned by the debris and nail sweep closeout SOP, though this pass verifies it ran. Does not cover warranty registration or the handover packet, owned by the warranty SOP, which starts from this record.

Roles and responsibilities

What makes a photograph evidence

Four things, and a frame missing any of them is a picture rather than a record.

Orientation: something in frame that places it on the building, such as the chimney, the ridge line or a window. A close shot of a boot could be any house on the street.

Scale: a tape or a shingle course of known exposure, wherever the later question will be a dimension. Ice barrier extent, lap width, step flashing height and kickout size all become arguments about inches.

Time and place: the camera's own timestamp and location metadata, left switched on. A photo dated after a storm proves less than the same photo dated before it.

One subject: a wide shot of a plane and a close shot of its valley are two photographs. A frame trying to be both is neither, because the detail is unreadable and the context is cropped.

Procedure

1. Assemble the build-stage record before you climb, and name what is missing. Pull the deck entry, the underlayment and flashing release, and the fastener audit for every plane, and confirm each has the photographs it was supposed to produce. Acceptance: every plane has a deck entry, a release with a verifier's name, a fastener entry with an audited count, and the photographs each names. Wrong looks like a full set of finished shots and nothing from under the covering. Stop rule: a missing photograph of something still visible from outside gets taken now; one of something now buried is written in as a gap naming whoever released that plane, never quietly skipped. Hazard: none, this is done at the truck with the file open.

2. Walk each plane on a fixed route and read the covering. Start at one corner, walk the courses, and sight along the plane at a low angle where a lifted tab or a course out of line shows. Check exposure, course lines, rake cuts, and any scuffed or fractured shingle. Acceptance: exposure within the manufacturer's stated tolerance across the plane, no lifted or unsealed tab, no fractured shingle left in place. Wrong looks like a shingle scuffed by foot traffic in heat being left because it is not obviously torn; it has already lost granules and will fail early. Stop rule: a torn mat, a fracture or a bare patch is replaced before the crew leaves. Hazard: this walk is done connected per the fall protection SOP and never on wet or frosted covering.

3. Check every termination and transition on the roof. Rakes, eaves, hips, ridge, valleys, wall intersections, kickouts, chimney counterflashing, and any tie-in to an adjacent roof or lower porch. Acceptance: every transition either shows the correct detail or is photographed and listed on the punch list with what is wrong. Wrong looks like counterflashing set on a chimney face with sealant instead of into a reglet or under the existing masonry counter. Stop rule: a transition that would let water behind cladding or masonry holds the job open, whatever the schedule says, because it damages the building rather than the roof. Hazard: chimney work puts a hand on masonry that can be loose after a reroof, so test before pulling; and cutting or grinding a reglet is a respirable silica exposure under 29 CFR 1926.1153, which makes it separate planned work rather than something added to a closing walk.

4. Confirm the ventilation openings are open and connected. Look under the ridge vent for a continuous cut slot along its run, confirm exhaust units are not blocked by the new covering, and check that soffit or eave intake is present and not packed with insulation. Acceptance: a cut slot visible for the full run under the ridge vent, every exhaust unit clear, intake open at the eave. Wrong looks like ridge vent installed over deck that was never cut, or cut for part of its length. Stop rule: an uncut or partly cut slot means the cap comes off and the slot is cut before the crew leaves, and the correction is re-photographed. Hazard: checking intake means the attic, where you walk framing rather than ceiling drywall; old loose granular fill can be vermiculite carrying amphibole asbestos, which releases respirable fibers when moved or blown across, so it is not walked on or disturbed and the intake question is answered from the hatch or not at all.

5. Verify the ground, the gutters and the neighbors. Confirm the magnet sweep ran across drive, walks, lawn and any adjacent property debris could reach, check gutters and downspouts for scrap and nails, and look at landscaping and the condenser. Acceptance: two magnet passes recorded, no visible debris in any gutter run, no crushed plantings, no damage to a mechanical unit. Wrong looks like a sweep of the drive only, when the wind-side lawn is where the nails went. Stop rule: a nail found on the second pass means a third pass over that whole area, because one found means incomplete rather than nearly complete. Hazard: gutters are checked from a ladder set per the ladder SOP rather than by reaching from the roof edge, with gloves on for the cut edges.

6. Capture the finished shot list in one continuous pass. Work the fixed list without breaking to do anything else, so nothing is skipped by interruption. Acceptance: every category on the list present, each frame carrying orientation, scale where a dimension matters, and its timestamp. Wrong looks like a set with good elevations and no gutter or ground shots, which is the half a debris complaint turns on. Stop rule: a category that cannot be captured is written into the record as not captured, with the reason. Hazard: a camera in your hand is a hand not available to catch you and it pulls your eyes off the surface, so every frame is taken from a stationary connected position and nobody frames walking backwards. Flown elevation shots need a remote pilot certificate under 14 CFR Part 107, visual line of sight, and no flight over the customer, the crew or the sidewalk.

7. Walk the customer and write down what they said. Show them the roof from the ground on each elevation, show the ground condition, name the punch items you already found, and ask them directly what they see that they do not like. Acceptance: every item the customer raises written verbatim with a disposition, and their signature on what they were shown. Wrong looks like a walk presenting only good news, which turns a small punch item into a complaint call two days later. Stop rule: anything the lead cannot resolve on the spot goes on the punch list with a date, not into a promise. Hazard: the customer is on the property near staging, so the walk route stays clear of the drop zone and the dumpster, and the duty owed them is ordinary care rather than anything in the crew's own safety program.

8. Close the record or say plainly that it is open. File the assembled set under the job, list punch items with owners and dates, and mark the job closed only when the list is empty. Acceptance: one record per job with build-stage entries, finished shots, punch list, walk sheet, and a status of closed or open with a reason. Wrong looks like a job marked complete with three punch items nobody owns. Stop rule: a punch item with no owner and no date does not exist, so it gets one or it comes off as declined by the customer in writing. Hazard: none, it is filing done at a desk.

The record this produces

The finished shot list is fixed so two techs produce comparable sets: one frame per elevation from the ground, one full frame per roof plane, one per valley, one per wall-to-roof intersection including its kickout, one per penetration, one along the ridge, one of the exhaust vent showing its slot, one of intake at the eave per long elevation, one per gutter run, one of the drive and lawn after the final sweep, one of the staging area after removal, and one of the signed walk sheet.

Files are named to job number, plane or elevation, and subject, before anyone leaves site. The record carries the build-stage entries ahead of the finished shots, the punch list, and any gap named at step 1. The warranty desk starts its handover packet here, and the office pulls it whole the day a callback comes in.

Worked pass: 22-square gable reroof, simple layout

The building has 4 elevations, 2 roof planes, 1 valley at the porch tie-in, 2 wall-to-roof intersections, 5 penetrations, 1 ridge with a continuous ridge vent, intake at 2 long soffits, and 4 gutter runs. Counting the fixed list against that building gives 4 plus 2 plus 1 plus 2 plus 5 plus 1 plus 1 plus 2 plus 4, then the drive, the staging area and the walk sheet, which totals 25 frames.

Step 1 finds the south plane's release entry has no kickout photograph. The kickout sits at the eave above the gutter and is still visible from outside, so the stop rule sends the lead up a ladder for the shot rather than logging a gap. It is added, and the release entry is annotated with the date it was taken so the file does not read as if it existed all along.

Step 4 fails. Under the ridge vent the cut slot runs from the east end to roughly 6 ft short of the west gable. The acceptance is a continuous slot for the full run, so this is a fail, not a near miss. The stop rule fires: the last section of cap and vent comes off, the slot is cut to the vent manufacturer's stated width and end setback, the vent and cap go back, and the corrected run is photographed twice, once open showing the cut and once closed.

Everything else clears. Step 2 finds one scuffed shingle on the north plane at a foot-traffic line, replaced under its stop rule. Step 5 records two magnet passes with nothing on the second. Step 7 produces one customer item, a downspout extension not put back after the dumpster left, resolved on the spot.

Final count: 25 frames plus the added kickout shot and the two ridge correction frames is 28. The lead's note is that no earlier entry owned the ridge slot, because the vent goes on after the covering. The fix is to add the slot cut to the ridge plane's verification pass rather than leaving it to the closing walk, where finding it costs a cap removal.

References

• The shingle, ridge vent and flashing manufacturers' installation instructions, which set exposure tolerance, slot width and vent setback and are the condition of the material warranty
• 14 CFR Part 107 for small unmanned aircraft operations, where a drone is used to capture elevation photographs commercially
• OSHA guidance on respirable crystalline silica in construction, 29 CFR 1926.1153, where a reglet or masonry cut is part of a correction
• See related: the debris and nail sweep closeout SOP, the flashing and penetration detail inspection SOP, and the roof warranty registration and handover SOP, which builds its packet from this record