The next 20 minutes
- Get people and valuables out from under it. Move furniture, electronics, and anything irreplaceable away from the drip or the sag. If a ceiling is bulging with water, put a bucket under it and, if you can do so safely, relieve it with a small hole at the lowest point rather than letting it collapse.
- Catch the water. Buckets, towels, a tarp on the floor. If water is near a light fixture or outlet, switch that circuit off at the breaker.
- Stay off the roof. A wet, icy, or wind-blasted roof is how a leak becomes an ER visit. Emergency roofers carry fall protection for exactly this; you do not.
- Photograph everything, dated. Interior damage, and the exterior from the ground — before any tarp goes on. General documentation, not insurance advice; your insurer will tell you what they need.
- Call for a tarp, then a repair. An emergency call is mitigation first — a properly secured tarp or temporary patch — with the real repair scheduled once the roof is safe and dry. Expect an after-hours surcharge on top of the repair.
- Note what the roofer tells you. Cause, extent, and whether decking is wet. That is the basis for the repair-or-replace decision once the emergency is over.
What a fair emergency call includes
- A stated surcharge before dispatch. After-hours and weekend calls cost more everywhere; the number should be quoted on the phone, not discovered on the invoice.
- Mitigation, not a sales pitch. The job that night is to stop the water: a battened tarp, a temporary patch, clearing a blocked valley. A full replacement quote at 11 pm is a pressure tactic.
- A description of what they found. Cause, extent, and whether the decking is wet — you will need that for the repair decision and, if applicable, an insurance conversation.
- A repair appointment. The tarp buys days, not months. A roofer who tarps and disappears has done half the job.
- Nevada paperwork rules, even in a hurry. License number on the invoice (NRS 624.720 requires it on advertising and it belongs on the paperwork), deposit no more than the lesser of $1,000 or 10% (NRS 624.970), and a check made out to the exact licensed name.
Why Reno roofs fail suddenly
Two local conditions drive most emergency calls here. Wind: Washoe County designs roofs to a 120 mph wind speed — the area is a designated special wind region — and the afternoon westerly that locals call the Washoe Zephyr lifts aging shingles a few at a time until a gust takes a section. Snow and thaw: Reno averages about 20.9 inches of snow a year, mostly December through February, and the sunny-day/freezing-night pattern that follows a storm builds ice at the eaves. On a roof without ice-barrier underlayment (required by the county above 5,300 ft, optional below), that ice dam backs meltwater under the shingles and into the house — the classic "it only leaks when it's sunny after a storm" call.
After a wind event, the storm-damage guide covers what to look for from the ground once it is safe.
After a big wind event: the door-knocker problem
Widespread wind damage brings out-of-area crews who canvass neighborhoods offering "free inspections" and "we'll handle your insurance." Some are legitimate. The tells that one is not are the same as always in Nevada: no license number on the truck or card (NRS 624.720), a deposit request over the cap, pressure to sign today, and an offer to waive or "cover" your deductible. Run any of them through the five-minute NSCB lookup before anything is signed — a real emergency is still no reason to skip it.
Once the water has stopped
The emergency is over when the roof is dry and secured. What comes next is an ordinary repair or replacement decision, made without a bucket in the room: the Reno roof repair guide covers what a repair should cost and when it stops making sense, and the replacement cost guide has sourced Reno ranges if the damage turns out to be the whole roof.