Flashing and Penetration Detail Inspection SOP

Purpose

A field of sound shingles almost never leaks. Water gets in where two materials meet, where two trades met each other years ago, or where somebody sealed a detail instead of flashing it. This procedure guarantees every interface on a roof is found, numbered, graded against a named termination standard and photographed, so a leak call six months out is answered with a detail number and a dated photo instead of a guess.

Skip it and the shop repairs the detail the customer pointed at, misses the missing kickout twelve feet away that has been running water behind the siding for a decade, and inherits a rot claim the roof invoice never mentioned.

Scope

Covers steep-slope residential and light-commercial roofs of any covering - asphalt shingle, metal, tile, slate - and covers the interfaces only: flashings, penetrations, terminations, transitions.

It does not cover the field condition survey, remaining-life call or storm-damage assessment, which the residential roof inspection SOP owns, nor the repair itself. It does not authorize destructive work: pulling siding or removing counterflashing from a reglet is a separately scoped visit with the customer's written go-ahead, and a two-minute controlled hose run at one detail is the only wetting permitted here.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Set fall protection before the ladder goes up. Anchor a personal fall arrest system to structure - a ridge anchor into rafters or truss top chords, never sheathing alone - whenever work happens 6 ft or more above a lower level, the construction trigger at 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13). Set the ladder at a 4 to 1 pitch with rails 3 ft above the eave and tied at the top, per 1926.1053(b)(1). Acceptance: D-ring between the shoulder blades, rope grab set short enough that a fall cannot reach the eave, ladder feet on firm level ground. Wrong: an anchor screwed through decking only. Stop rule: no anchor reaching structure means the roof is not walked - inspect from grade with a long lens and record that it was not accessed. Hazard here is the ladder more than the roof, so hoist tools in a bucket and keep both hands on the rails.

2. Build the detail inventory from the ground before climbing. Walk all four elevations, photograph every plane, and list every interface: vents, skylights, valleys, roof-to-wall and roof-to-chimney intersections, every lower termination of a wall intersection, every pitch or covering transition, every solar mount. Number by elevation and plane (N-1, N-2, E-1). Acceptance: a numbered list carrying a total count, one photo per number. Wrong: a count taken from two elevations, which reliably misses a vent behind a chimney on a rear slope. Stop rule: a detail found on the roof but not on the list stops grading - re-run the ground survey from the elevation you skipped and re-issue the count, because the miss is evidence today's method failed. Hazard: find the overhead service drop first, keeping ladder and extension pole at least 10 ft from lines rated 50 kV or below per 29 CFR 1926.600(a)(6).

3. Read the attic under the details before disturbing anything on top. With a flashlight and a pin-type moisture meter, read the sheathing underside directly beneath each numbered detail plus the top plate of every wall a plane dies into, noting staining, rust rings at fastener shanks and daylight. Acceptance: one reading per accessible detail plus one baseline reading the same visit from a bay with no detail above it; more than a couple of points above baseline is called wet. Wrong: writing "dry" with no baseline, which makes the number unreadable to whoever re-inspects. Stop rule: active dripping, or sheathing a screwdriver enters under hand pressure, ends the inspection - photograph and escalate that day for temporary cover. Hazard: where fibrous or suspect vermiculite insulation is present the exposure route is inhalation, so wear a NIOSH-approved respirator under a program meeting 29 CFR 1910.134, not a nuisance dust mask.

4. Grade every lower roof-to-wall termination for a kickout. Where a sloped roof edge dies into a clad wall, confirm a kickout flashing is present, its leg at least as tall as the step flashing it continues, sitting behind the water-resistive barrier, discharging into the gutter rather than onto the wall face. The IRC requires it at that condition, at R903.2.1 in the edition your jurisdiction has adopted. Acceptance: present, integrated behind cladding, and diverting into the gutter under a two-minute hose run with an observer at the wall below. Wrong: no kickout, one formed from sealant, or one face-nailed over the siding. Stop rule: missing or surface-mounted is a FAIL, never a MONITOR, and the scope has to include opening the cladding. Hazard: the hose test wets the plane you stand on, so run it from the ladder or an anchored position above the wetted area, never free-walking a wet slope.

5. Grade step flashing and headwall flashing. Step flashing is one piece per shingle course, minimum 4 in high by 4 in wide per IRC R905.2.8.2, laced course by course, fastened through the vertical leg high enough that the next course covers the fastener. Acceptance: individual pieces visible at each course with at least 2 in of overlap, no fasteners in the water course, vertical leg behind the cladding. Wrong: a bead of roof cement along the wall line, the reliable tell that a continuous strip is hiding under it. Stop rule: continuous flashing or a cemented wall line is a FAIL, written up as stripping courses back and re-lacing, because no surface repair exists for it. Hazard: below roughly 40 F asphalt shingles crack rather than bend, so a cold-weather lift test damages the roof you were hired to assess - record it as not lifted and come back.

6. Grade every pipe and equipment penetration. Check rubber-collared boots for collar cracking, fastener pattern and a correctly woven flange (upper flange under the courses above, lower over those below); check appliance vent storm collars; look for a flashed base rather than a screw and a bead at solar and satellite mounts. Acceptance: the collar flexes under a gloved thumb with no crack through its wall, at least four fasteners land in deck under the covering course, and no sealant performs the primary seal. Wrong: circumferential cracking at the top of the collar, the ultraviolet failure that routinely ends a rubber boot well before the shingles are finished. Stop rule: a through-cracked collar is a FAIL even with a dry ceiling below, and a sealant-only mount is a FAIL, since sealant lasts a few seasons against a fastener that stays for the roof's life. Hazard: do not lift or re-seat a storm collar on a gas appliance vent unless the appliance is off and the vent is cool to a gloved touch, and a disturbed vent connection gets a spillage check by whoever owns that appliance before it fires again.

7. Grade valleys, chimneys and transitions. On an open metal valley confirm hemmed edges, no fasteners in the water course, and an ice barrier underneath where the area has a history of eave ice, run from the eave edge to at least 24 in inside the exterior wall line per IRC R905.1.2. On a chimney confirm counterflashing let into a reglet or mortar joint rather than face-sealed to brick, and a cricket where the chimney exceeds 30 in wide measured perpendicular to the slope per IRC R1003.20. Wrong: counterflashing on a sealant bead that has pulled at its top edge. Stop rule: a missing cricket over 30 in is a FAIL a re-flash will not fix and goes to the estimator as a build item. Hazard: push-test masonry top courses from an anchored position before leaning on them, since bad mortar lets a crown go over with a person's weight behind it, and a chimney is never a fall-protection anchor.

8. Grade, photograph and close out on the roof, not in the truck. Assign every numbered detail exactly one grade - PASS, MONITOR (a real defect with remaining life, re-inspect at a stated interval in months), or FAIL (active or imminent water path) - and photograph each with its number on a slate in frame. Acceptance: grade count equals inventory count, every FAIL carries a wide shot placing it on the roof plus a close shot of the defect, every MONITOR carries an interval in months. Wrong: grading from memory after the descent, which converts MONITOR to PASS with great consistency. Stop rule: if the counts do not match, go back up, or mark that number "not accessed" with a reason - never blank, because a blank reads as a pass to everyone downstream. Hazard: tools go down in the bucket before you do, since the common injury on this job is the last ladder trip with full hands.

The record this produces

The detail inventory sheet is the deliverable: address, date, inspector, weather and roof surface temperature, then one row per numbered detail carrying elevation and plane, detail type, grade, defect note, the attic moisture reading taken under it, and the photo file reference. Two fields are promoted to the job itself, detail count and FAIL count, so a list view shows which properties have open water paths.

Four people read it later. The estimator converts FAILs to scope. The crew lead loads the right flashing stock instead of making a supply run mid-job. The office defends the shop's position when a leak is reported at a detail graded PASS four months earlier. The next inspector picks up the MONITOR intervals.

Worked pass

A 1998 two-story, 6:12 architectural shingle, walkable, called in for a ceiling stain in an upstairs bedroom on an outside wall.

Step 2 produced a ground inventory of 13 details from the front and one side elevation. On the roof the inspector found a second plumbing vent tucked behind the chimney on the rear slope, invisible from both elevations used. Step 2's stop rule fired: grading stopped, the rear elevation was re-shot from over the back fence, and the inventory re-issued at 14 with a method note that two-story rear slopes need a fourth elevation shot. That note is worth more than the vent it found.

The step 3 baseline on a clear rafter bay read 9 on the meter's relative scale. Twelve of the fourteen details read within two points of it. The boot at S-3 read 14. Sheathing under the dormer's lower wall termination at W-2 read 26, with rust rings at three fastener shanks and a stain tracking down the top plate.

Step 4 at W-2 found no kickout at all: step flashing simply stopped at the last course and water had been crossing the siding face. No hose test was needed, because the top-plate stain sat directly under the termination. FAIL, two photos, write-up specifying the cladding opened two studs either side. Step 6 at S-3 found a crack through the collar wall at its top edge: FAIL, same-visit repair. The boot at S-1 showed surface crazing with no through-crack: MONITOR at 12 months.

Final grades on 14 details: 11 PASS, 1 MONITOR, 2 FAIL. The crew mobilized with kickout stock and a boot already on the truck, and opening the cladding at W-2 found two studs with surface rot and no sheathing loss, so the repair landed inside the estimate rather than doubling it. The S-1 MONITOR came due at twelve months and was replaced during a gutter service call, which is the entire reason the interval field exists.

References

• 29 CFR 1926 Subpart M, fall protection in construction, with the 6 ft residential trigger at 1926.501(b)(13); 1926.1053 for ladders; 1926.600(a)(6) for clearance from energized overhead lines.
• 29 CFR 1910.134 where respiratory protection is required for attic work in fibrous or suspect insulation.
• International Residential Code, in the edition your jurisdiction has adopted: R903.2.1 kickout flashing, R905.2.8.2 step flashing, R905.1.2 ice barrier, R1003.20 chimney crickets.
• The covering manufacturer's installation instructions and detail drawings, which govern where more restrictive than code and which the warranty is written against.
• See related: roofing-roof-inspection-process for whole-roof condition.