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Handover is the day the scope is checked, not the last day a new roof detail can misbehave. A weeping lap, a flashing left open, or a ridge that cracks in the first wet month is a defect conversation with the company named on the contract. Roof Revival Melbourne expects that call to arrive with photos. Wear and tear three winters later is a different visit.
A defect is work that was in the scope and is not performing, or workmanship that has failed while the roof is still in its settling weather. A new stain under a valley we replaced, a screw line we fixed that is now loose, or bedding that has cracked before it has lived through a summer, belongs back with the crew who did it. A gutter full of seed pods, a tile a possum shifted, or a coat that has dulled after years of sun is maintenance. The email you send should pick one of those, because a mixed complaint is easy to delay.
This page is about the call after a restore or a repair. Insurance schemes have their own clocks and their own definitions. They are the backstop if the builder will not return. They are not the first phone call on a Tuesday.
Photograph the inside mark and the outside detail you think is responsible. Note the date of the rain, not only the date you noticed the ring. If you still have the before-and-after set from the job, put the handover photo of that ridge or that lap next to the new one. The comparison is the argument. “It leaks” is a mood. “This apron, photo 14 at handover, is open after the August rain” is a defect report.
Write to the contracting party, not to whichever apprentice answered the phone. Use the email on the quote. Keep it short: address, date of handover, what the scope said, what you are seeing, and the photos. Ask for a return visit. Give a reasonable window. Keep the reply.
Stay off the roof. A second set of boots can create the next defect and muddy the first one. If water is entering now, a bucket and a towel are the indoor move. An emergency cover is a separate decision when the weather will not wait for a booking. Say that you have covered it, and do not start a second company’s permanent repair on top of the first company’s unfinished one unless you have decided the first contract is over.
The return visit checks the scoped work. On a restore, that is often the new bedding, the tiles that were swapped, the valley that was listed, and the coating if it has failed early because prep was skipped. On a repair, it is the one detail. The company should be able to say, on the roof, whether the failure is theirs. If it is, they fix it. If the water is coming from a gutter everyone agreed to leave, or from a skylight that was excluded, the honest sentence is that this is new work, priced as new work, not smuggled in as guilt.
The restore this article sits beside is roof restoration in Melbourne. A proper system includes the ridges and the prep. If those were in the scope and they have failed early, that is the defect. If they were never in the scope, the argument is about what you bought, and the photos from before you signed are the ones that settle it. That is why those photos exist.
Melbourne will test a new detail. The first winter opens anything that was marginal. That is exactly why an early leak is useful information, and why it should be reported while the file is fresh. A mark that appears after a hail cell is a storm event. Photograph the dents or the cracked units and treat it as storm damage, not as proof the restore was fake. Hail does not care that the coating is eight weeks old.
Other trades walk roofs. Solar installers, antenna fitters, and painters lean ladders into valleys. A cracked tile under a new rail may be their boot. Ask them for their photos. We will still come and look. We will also say when the damage sits under someone else’s visit. Blaming the restore for every later trade is how good jobs get a reputation they did not earn, and how real defects get buried in the noise.
Maintenance remains yours. Leaves in a valley, a downpipe full of seed, and a coating that needs a wash years later are not defects in the bedding. The note on what a wash cannot do keeps that line clear. Call us for the defect. Do not wait until the sarking has been wet all season and then describe a year of silence as a workmanship issue.
Keep the paper trail. If the job was domestic building work on a major contract, the builder’s obligation to fix defective work sits in that relationship, and the insurance scheme is the path Consumer Affairs describes when the builder cannot or will not fix it. Use the notice of cover, if you were given one, and the public guidance. Do not invent a deadline we have not put on your contract, and do not treat this article as a warranty period with a number of years attached. Your contract and the scheme documents have the clocks. This page has the habit: photos, a written ask, a return visit.
Hiring a second roofer to “just fix it” before that ask can spend the evidence. Sometimes the leak is too active to wait. Say so, keep the invoices, and understand you may be choosing speed over a clean defect claim. Legal advice is worth more than a furious group chat when the sums are large.
Send suburb, storeys and two roof photos. Roof Revival Melbourne — 0426 516 883 · info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au
