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Water actively leaking through a damaged interior ceiling in a San Antonio home, showing water stains and drip damage from a roof leak.
Emergency service

Emergency Roof Repair in San Antonio

Water coming in? Stop the damage first. Decide about the roof later.

Emergency tarping and same-day response across San Antonio and Central Texas, from Atrium's own crew. Here's what to do in the next hour before anyone arrives. Calls answered 24/7 in English & español by Alex, our AI specialist.

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What to do in the next hour

Before anyone gets there. In order.

  1. 1

    Move what’s below it. Furniture, electronics, anything absorbent. Water spreads along the ceiling before it drops.

  2. 2

    Contain the water. Buckets, towels, a tarp on the floor. Empty containers before they overflow.

  3. 3

    If the ceiling is bulging, puncture it. A small hole at the lowest point with a screwdriver drains the pocket into a bucket. A bulging ceiling that lets go all at once does far more damage and can injure someone.

  4. 4

    Kill power to affected rooms at the breaker if water is anywhere near fixtures, outlets, or the ceiling fan.

  5. 5

    Photograph everything, with timestamps. Interior damage, the water path, the contents affected. Do this before you clean up — the insurance claim depends on it.

  6. 6

    Do not go on the roof. Wet roofs are the leading cause of homeowner falls, and a storm-damaged roof may have compromised decking underneath.

For a leak or small repair, we inspect the problem area, photograph it, and give you a written repair price. Want the full 53-point roof inspection instead? Ask for it. It's free too. See what the full roof inspection covers.

Jose Puente, Civil Engineer and owner of Atrium Roofing.
Content reviewed and approved by Jose Puente, Civil Engineer and owner of Atrium Roofing since 2016.
Meet Jose

How emergency tarping actually works

A tarp is a controlled temporary waterproofing measure. It is not a sheet thrown over a hole.

Done correctly, an emergency tarp is a short-term roofing detail with a defined service life. The material is heavy-duty reinforced poly, not a hardware-store painter’s tarp. Where the roof geometry allows, it is run over the ridge and down the opposite slope, so there is no top edge for water to get under. Water always finds an unsealed upper edge.

It is secured with furring strips — wood battens screwed through the tarp into the roof decking — with the tarp edges rolled around the strips and sealed. That is what keeps it attached in wind. It is not nailed loosely at the corners and it is not held down with sandbags, tires, or bricks, which is the method that shows up in most of the failures we get called to replace.

The honest tradeoff: a properly installed tarp puts screw holes in your roof. That is accepted practice, and here is the reasoning. Those penetrations sit inside the area that is about to be repaired or replaced anyway, so they are removed along with the damaged material. A tarp that blows off during the next storm costs far more than a few screw holes — you get a second round of interior damage, at night, with no protection in place and no one watching.

A correctly installed tarp lasts 60 to 90 days in Central Texas conditions. That is deliberate: it is roughly the window needed to get an adjuster out, get the claim decided, and get permanent work scheduled. Weighted or unsecured tarps typically fail in the first significant wind event, often within days.

What insurance covers, and what it needs from you

Emergency mitigation is generally a duty under your policy, not a favor you are asking for.

Most homeowner policies contain a provision requiring you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage after a covered loss. That cuts in your favor here. Because mitigation is something you are obligated to do, the cost of doing it — emergency tarping, board-up, water extraction — is typically reimbursable, and you do not need your carrier’s prior approval before acting. Waiting for permission while water runs is the wrong move on both the damage and the claim.

Reimbursement, though, depends almost entirely on documentation. Three things matter:

  • Dated photographs taken before mitigation. Once the tarp is on and the carpet is dry, the evidence of what happened is gone. Photograph the damage, the water path, and the affected contents before anyone covers or cleans anything.
  • An itemized emergency invoice, separate from the permanent repair. Adjusters process emergency mitigation on a different track than repair scope. Bundled into one estimate, it frequently gets absorbed or questioned. We invoice emergency work separately for exactly this reason.
  • Prompt notice to the carrier. Policies vary and Texas law requires prompt notice. Practically, file within a year of the dated storm event, and sooner is better because proving which storm caused the damage gets harder as more storms pass over. Texas law also limits how long you have to sue an insurer. That deadline depends on the kind of claim and your policy, often runs from the insurer's decision rather than the storm date, and a policy can shorten it to two years, the shortest Texas allows. Ask a Texas attorney for your deadline.

More detail on how carriers evaluate roof claims, and where claims commonly fall apart, is on our insurance claims page.

What counts as an emergency

Being clear about what is not an emergency matters as much as the list of what is. Emergency rates should be paid for emergencies.

Active water entering the living space
Yes — call now.

Every hour it runs, it moves further into insulation, drywall, and framing.

Missing shingles or exposed decking after a storm
Yes — before the next rain.

Bare decking is unprotected. The next cell turns an exterior problem into an interior one.

A tree or large limb on the roof
Yes — and do not go up to look.

The limb may be holding load or resting on decking that is already broken.

Storm-lifted or peeled metal panels
Yes — wind will finish the job.

A lifted panel edge is a lever. The next gust takes the panel and often its neighbors.

A stain that appeared days ago and isn’t growing
No — book a normal inspection.

It still needs diagnosing, but it does not need a crew tonight at emergency rates.

Granule loss or an aging roof you’re worried about
No — that’s a free inspection.

Real, but not urgent. Start with a free full roof inspection and a written report on the whole roof.

After the tarp: what happens next

The tarp is the first hour. This is the next few weeks.

  1. 1
    Documented inspection and written scope

    Once the building is dry, we inspect the damaged area, photograph it, and find the actual entry path rather than assume it. You get a written repair price. Want the whole roof checked too? Ask for the full roof inspection. It is free.

  2. 2
    Claim filing decision

    We document the damage and give you a repair price. You compare it with the deductible on your declarations page and decide whether to file. Sometimes the damage is real and clearly covered. Sometimes the repair costs less than the deductible, and filing costs you more than it returns. See hail damage and storm damage for how each is evaluated.

  3. 3
    Permanent repair or replacement scheduled

    The tarp buys 60 to 90 days, not a season. Within that window the roof gets a targeted repair or a full replacement, depending on what the inspection found.

  4. 4
    Emergency invoice submitted for reimbursement

    The itemized emergency invoice goes to your carrier as a separate document, with the dated pre-mitigation photographs attached, so it can be processed on its own rather than buried inside a repair estimate.

Emergency response by area

Same-day emergency tarping across the San Antonio metro and the I-35 corridor.

Alamo Ranch

Uniform builder roofs and long west-facing slopes that peel first in straight-line wind.

Alamo Ranch roofing guide
Bulverde

Steep pitches and mature canopy — tree impact is the most common emergency call here.

Bulverde roofing guide
San Antonio

Metro-wide same-day response, with active interior water triaged ahead of everything else.

San Antonio roofing guide
New Braunfels

Large cohorts of same-age builder roofs, so one storm generates a lot of simultaneous calls.

New Braunfels roofing guide
Boerne

Metal and tile rooflines where a lifted panel or slipped tile needs securing, not just covering.

Boerne roofing guide
Cibolo

Flat, open exposure with little wind break — wind-lifted shingle fields are the usual damage.

Cibolo roofing guide

After a widespread storm, response times stretch — everyone in the affected area calls the same week, and no local crew has surge capacity for that. We triage rather than queue: active interior water goes ahead of exterior-only damage, every time.

Warranty

The permanent repair is warranted in writing for 12 months

Every repair Atrium performs carries a written 12-month workmanship warranty. It covers the workmanship of the repair we did. If that repair does not hold the way it should, we come back out and put it right.

One thing worth being clear about: the warranty covers the repair we performed, not the condition of the rest of your roof. If your roof is twenty years old and we reflash a chimney, the chimney work is what we stand behind. The rest of the roof keeps aging at its own pace, and we will tell you honestly where it stands.

It is not insurance. It does nothing for storm, hail, or wind damage, which is what an insurance claim is for.

Emergency roof repair FAQs

Yes, for genuine emergencies. Same-day roofing service in our case means a crew on site to stop water entry and stabilize the roof — tarping, sealing an open penetration, securing lifted metal. It does not usually mean a permanent repair the same day, and any contractor promising a full permanent repair within hours of a storm is either guessing at scope or has not looked at the decking. Stop the water first, then diagnose properly.

For a typical single-story home with a moderate area to cover, most emergency tarping jobs land somewhere in the range of roughly $400 to $1,200. The spread is real and it is driven by roof size, pitch, height, access, and how much area has to be covered — a steep two-story slope in wind costs more to work than a low single-story section, and a 20-foot square of exposed decking costs more than a single failed penetration. We give a number before we start, in writing.

Usually, yes. Most homeowner policies both allow and require reasonable emergency measures to prevent further damage, and tarping and water extraction generally fall inside that. Reimbursement depends on documentation: dated photographs before mitigation, an itemized invoice for the emergency work kept separate from any permanent repair, and prompt notice to your carrier. We invoice emergency work separately for exactly that reason.

A correctly installed tarp — heavy-duty poly, run over the ridge where the roof geometry allows, secured with furring strips screwed through into the decking, edges rolled and sealed — will reliably hold 60 to 90 days. That is the window you need to get a claim adjusted and permanent work scheduled. A tarp weighted with sandbags or tacked at the corners typically fails in the first significant wind event, which is a worse outcome than no tarp at all because you stop watching the ceiling.

Honestly: sometimes. A small, low, easily accessible area on a walkable pitch, in dry conditions, with someone else there — that is a reasonable thing for a capable homeowner to do. A steep roof, a wet roof, a second story, or a roof with storm damage that may have compromised the decking underneath is not. Two things go wrong most often. People fall, and people secure the tarp badly so it catches wind, peels, and takes shingles with it. A badly secured tarp can make the damage significantly worse.

We will still come out, but what we can safely do changes. Working a wet roof in active rain is dangerous and often ineffective, because tarps and sealants do not adhere or secure well on saturated surfaces. In heavy rain the useful work is frequently interior: locating the entry path, containing and extracting water, protecting contents, and documenting. We tarp as soon as the roof is workable, which is often the same day once the cell passes.

For active water intrusion, yes. Storms in Central Texas do not observe business hours, and a leak left overnight moves through insulation, drywall, and framing the whole time. Exterior-only damage with no water coming in — missing shingles on a dry forecast — is normally scheduled for the next working day, which is the right call for everyone.

Get everyone out of the rooms beneath it, and do not go up to look. A limb on a roof can be resting on compromised decking or holding load that shifts when disturbed. Large-tree removal is typically a coordinated job: an arborist or crane crew removes the tree safely, then we assess the structure and dry the building in. Photograph it from the ground first. Tree impact is one of the more clearly covered perils on most policies.

Do the emergency work first, and notify your carrier promptly — the two things are not in conflict. Every policy expects you to mitigate immediately rather than wait for permission, and delaying mitigation to preserve the scene can actually hurt the claim. What matters is that you photographed the damage before you covered or cleaned anything, and that the emergency invoice is itemized separately.

For active interior water across the San Antonio metro, Bulverde, Boerne, New Braunfels, Cibolo, Seguin, and San Marcos, we aim for same-day. After a widespread hail or wind event, that stretches, because everyone in the affected area calls the same week. We triage: active water inside a house goes ahead of exterior-only damage, every time.

Emergency tarping is priced as its own line item rather than as a surcharge on a future job, and we quote it before we start. It isn't free. A crew, materials, and after-hours labor cost real money. Many policies include emergency mitigation coverage, but whether your tarp cost is reimbursed is up to your carrier. We give you an itemized invoice for the emergency work, kept separate from any permanent repair.

That is the normal case, not the unusual one. Most leaks originate at penetrations and flashings — pipe boots, chimneys, skylights, wall transitions — and none of those are visible from the driveway. Water also travels along rafters and the top of the ceiling before it drops, so the stain is rarely under the entry point. That is what the attic inspection is for.

Related reading

Storm damage

Wind, tree, and wind-driven rain damage, and how insurance evaluates it.

Read
Hail damage

Functional versus cosmetic damage, and how a claim is actually documented.

Read
Insurance claims

How carriers assess roof claims and where claims most often fail.

Read
Ready when you are

Let's get your roof stabilized today.

(210) 807-6767

No pressure, no obligation. Calls answered 24/7 in English & español by Alex, our AI specialist · Free leak inspection: photos of the problem and a written repair price.