Windstorm program
Why a Coastal Re-Roof Needs a Windstorm Certificate
Replacing a roof inside the designated area is an improvement the program covers. It is also the single most common piece of coastal work that gets done without anyone filing anything.
The surprise
A re-roof is not maintenance here
Inside the designated area, replacing a roof covering is work the program reaches.
Outside the coast, replacing a roof is ordinary property maintenance and nobody files anything with an insurance regulator about it. Inside the designated catastrophe area it is an improvement that falls within the windstorm inspection program, and it is inspected on the same before-it-is-covered basis as new construction.
This catches people constantly, and it catches them at the worst possible time, which is after a storm when every roofer on the coast is booked and the incentive to just get it done is at its highest.
Who inspects
Most of this work does not need an engineer
TDI describes its own inspectors as handling non-structural work including most repairs, alterations, and re-roofs. For a great deal of coastal roofing, the departmental route is the ordinary one and no engineer is involved at all.
That is worth knowing because it changes the cost and the scheduling picture entirely, and because a contractor who tells a homeowner that an engineer is required for a straightforward re-roof may simply be wrong about which route the work takes.
The timing problem
The deck is visible for about a day
Everything the inspection cares about is exposed briefly and then covered for twenty years.
On a re-roof, the things that determine wind performance are the deck, its attachment, and how the new covering is fastened. All of it is visible for a short window in the middle of the job and invisible immediately afterwards.
A crew that tears off on a Tuesday and dries in on a Wednesday has given the program a one day window to see the work. When that window is missed, the job is not uncertified because it was bad. It is uncertified because it was fast.
Consequences
What an uncertified re-roof costs later
The immediate consequence is on coverage. The certificate is what supports eligibility for wind and hail coverage through the association, and an improvement that was never certified is a gap in the structure's record rather than a gap in its construction.
The delayed consequence arrives at sale. A buyer's side that pulls the certificate history and finds a roof replacement with no corresponding certificate has found a problem that has to be resolved on somebody's dime, usually under time pressure, usually through the completed construction route. What a sequenced inspection would have cost during the job is a fraction of what resolving it at closing costs.
Questions
What people ask about this
- Does a repair after storm damage need a certificate?
- Repairs and alterations inside the designated area fall within the program, and TDI describes its own inspectors as handling most repairs, alterations, and re-roofs. Whether a specific repair requires inspection is a question for the department or an appointed engineer before the work starts rather than after it.
- Our roofer says he handles all of that. Is that enough?
- It is enough if it is true, and it is checkable. Certificates are searchable and the application is filed with the department, so an owner can confirm that the project was entered rather than accept that it was. The certificate attaches to the structure, so the person who carries the consequence of an unfiled application is the owner rather than the contractor.
Elsewhere in the program
The rest of the windstorm system
Each part of this program is decided by a different party, which is why they are separate pages.
The designated catastrophe area
Does this address fall inside the program at all?
WPI-1 and the inspection sequence
What has to happen before the first nail, and in what order?
Certificates for completed construction
The work is already finished and nobody inspected it. Now what?
The program overview sets out who decides what, and the windstorm capability page covers what this firm is built to deliver once it opens for work.
Start a job
Tell us what the letter is for and we will tell you yes or no
Send the address, what the document is for, and the date it has to be in hand. Some jobs this firm cannot take, and you will hear that in the first conversation rather than after you have paid and waited.