Mon-Fri 9am-5pm Knoxville & the Gulf South Storm line: (865) 555-0172
Two workers fitting pale horizontal lap siding to the front of a house, one on a stepladder and one steadying a board, with a partly clad gable still showing its battens and a trestle of cut boards on the path
Stage 06 Exteriors · greater Knoxville

Everything the roof drains onto

Water leaves the roof and immediately becomes somebody else's problem — the gutter, the wall, the ground, and eventually the ceiling. This page is arranged in that order, because that is the order it happens in.

Follow the water

Five places rain can go wrong

TN does not deliver rain gently. Every trade below exists because water got past the one before it — which is the whole argument for one company holding all of them.

  1. 01 At the edge

    Two inches of rain in an hour has to leave the roof somewhere. Undersized or blocked gutters send it straight down the wall and into the ground beside your foundation.

  2. 02 Down the wall

    Cladding in this climate is a moisture-management system that happens to look good. The roof-to-wall junction is where most leaks that get blamed on a roof actually start.

  3. 03 On the ground and above it

    Soaked soil moves fence posts. Overhanging limbs become a roof problem the next time it blows. Algae on a north slope is water that never got the chance to dry.

  4. 04 Inside, when it got in

    Once water is through the ceiling the roof is only half the job. Drying is metered work with a start reading and an end reading, and it is finished when the numbers say so.

  5. 05 Before there is a house at all

    On new construction every one of the details above is cheap to get right and expensive to retrofit. Kick-out flashing costs almost nothing at dry-in and a great deal at year four.

Straight answers

Exterior services — the questions we get

Why would a roofer do fencing and tree work?

Because after a storm they arrive as one visit. A limb on the roof has to come off before anything can be covered, and the fence it landed on is in the same set of photographs. Splitting that across three contractors mostly produces three schedules.

Can exterior work go on the same scope as the roof?

Where it is part of the same damage, yes — one scope, one set of photographs, one schedule. What your carrier includes is their decision and we never state it in advance.

Do you pressure wash roofs?

No. High pressure strips granules off shingles and shortens the roof by years. Roofs get low-pressure soft washing; driveways, decks and fencing get the pressure they can take.

Is the exterior inspection free too?

Yes. While somebody is on the roof they are already looking at the gutters, the flashing and the walls beneath them. The written verdict and the photographs cost nothing either way.

One visit, not four schedules.

Describe what came down and what it landed on. We will tell you what needs doing tonight, what can wait until the ground dries, and which of it belongs on the same scope.

Call the storm line Inspection