The roof on your garage is nearly as important as the roof on your home. It protects valuable items like cars, tools, workout equipment, and workshops from the elements. If the roof is starting to leak or you’re noticing signs that the roof may be deteriorating, you may need to start considering some garage roof repair or replacement.

Factors to Consider

In some cases, a garage roof is very much like the roof on your home. You can expect, therefore, to pay about the same amount per square (100 square feet) to replace the roof as you would to replace a square on your home. The national average per square installed runs around $500 for a 3-tab shingle roof. Repair costs to roofs can have a much wider range, beginning around $200 a going up from there.

Unfortunately, garages often have more considerations than a house’s roof will. For example, if the garage is detached, it may have a completely different pitch and structure to the roof than the rest of the house will. Depending on your area, it may not be uncommon to discover flat roofed or A-frame roofed garages. These factors can have a big impact on whether the roof should be repaired or replaced, and what the ultimate cost will be.

Flat Roofed Garages

If your garage has a flat roof, chances are you can have it reroofed for a lot less money than other garages. This is because the majority of materials used on flat roofs are fairly inexpensive running less than a dollar a square foot. On the other hand, unless the area to repair is relatively small, you may be better off replacing the entire roof rather than repairing it, depending on the age; many flat roofs have a lifespan of just 10 years, which means if they’re getting up there in age, replacement is imminent.

A-Frame and High-Pitch Garages

If your garage is older or is original to the home, it may have an A-frame or a higher pitch, especially in some areas of the country. This frame is great for helping the snow to slide right off in colder climates, but it makes roof repair trickier and more expensive.

Because of the way that the walls and overhang are supported by the underlying structure, often a leaking roof could spell disaster for the entire garage. This is because the water may travel down the rafters to the walls of the garage. So not only does the fact that the roof’s higher pitch will mean a more expensive repair or replacement job, the way the water travels means you will need more significant repairs to the whole structure and not just the roof.

Timely Repair and Maintenance

Ideally, you should be inspecting your garage roof yearly along with the roof on your home. If you notice cracked, missing, or curling shingles, or you notice signs on the underside of the roof that there has been water infiltration, make a call to get your roof repaired as quickly as possible. Remember that some small problems can turn into larger ones over time, and a small repair job that wouldn’t have cost much could turn into a total roof replacement if enough time goes by.