Brooklyn normally hits its first freeze in the second half of November, and roofing sealants and mortar stop curing below about 40 degrees. Anything open on your roof, gutters or fascia by then stays open until spring. MLM Construction Group does free pre winter roof inspections across Brooklyn at (516) 713-9199.
Every February we get the same call. Water coming through a top floor ceiling, a gutter hanging off the front of the house, a stain spreading across a bedroom wall. The homeowner says it happened overnight. It did not. It started in October as an open seam, a clogged downspout or a soft piece of fascia nobody looked at.
The reason winter is so hard on a building is simple physics. Water expands roughly nine percent when it freezes. A crack that holds a teaspoon of water in October becomes a wedge in January, and it does that every single night the temperature crosses freezing. Brooklyn gets dozens of those cycles a season. Each one makes the opening a little bigger.
That is the whole argument for inspecting now. Not because the roof is going to fail, but because winter is the one time of year the building has no tolerance for a small defect.
❄️ The deadline is the first freeze, not the first snow. Sealants, roof cements, coatings and mortar all need temperatures above roughly 40 degrees to cure. Once nights drop below that, a real repair is off the table and you are buying a tarp until April.
On a Brooklyn row house the gutters take the worst of it, because they are the one component asked to hold standing water in freezing weather.
Here is what happens when they are full of leaves. Water cannot reach the downspout, so it sits in the trough. It freezes. A 40 foot run of 5 inch gutter packed solid with ice carries well over 100 pounds, and once ice starts building above the lip that number climbs fast. Gutter hangers are screwed into a one inch thick board. They were never engineered for that load, and they let go.
What we check before the cold:
If the gutters are past saving, replacing them in the fall costs what it costs. Replacing them in January, with ice on the roof and a damaged fascia behind them, costs more and takes longer. Our breakdown of gutter replacement pricing has the numbers.
The fascia is the flat board running along the roof edge that the gutter is screwed to. It is usually one inch pine or spruce, painted, and on most Brooklyn houses it has been there a very long time. It is also the single most common thing we find rotted on a pre winter inspection, because it sits directly behind a gutter that has been leaking slowly for years.
Rotted fascia is not a cosmetic problem. It is the anchor for the gutter. When the board goes soft, three things follow in order: the hangers pull, the gutter sags, and the sag makes the gutter hold even more water. Then winter arrives and the whole assembly comes off the house.
Signs you can see from a ladder:
By the time fascia is soft, the roof sheathing behind it is usually wet too, and that is the point where a $900 board replacement turns into rebuilding the eave. Catching it in the fall is the difference.
On a flat or low-slope Brooklyn roof, which is most of the borough:
On a pitched roof:
If the house has stucco, brick or a cement parge coat, every open crack is a container. Water gets in during a November rain, freezes, and pushes the crack wider. Do that forty times over a winter and a hairline becomes a section that lets go of the wall.
Loose or hollow sounding stucco is the one that matters. Tap it. If it rings hollow, it has already lost its bond to the substrate and it is coming off, the only question is when. Closing cracks and resecuring loose sections before the freeze is cheap. Rebuilding a wall section in the spring is not, and if a piece comes down onto a sidewalk in NYC you are into violation territory. We cover the stucco and masonry side as part of the same inspection.
| Area | What to check | Why it matters in winter |
|---|---|---|
| Gutters | Clear trough, flowing leaders, correct slope | Standing water freezes and tears the gutter off |
| Downspouts | Discharge 4 to 6 feet from the wall | Ice sheets on the sidewalk, water in the basement |
| Fascia | Soft wood, stains, sagging gutter line | The gutter has nothing to hold onto |
| Soffit | Staining, dropped panels, blocked vents | Trapped moisture plus ice dam risk |
| Roof drains | Strainers clear, no ponding | Frozen ponding sits on the membrane all season |
| Seams and flashing | Open laps, lifted metal, failed boots | The entry point for every winter leak |
| Parapet and coping | Loose caps, open joints, lean | Freeze and thaw pushes masonry apart |
| Stucco and brick | Cracks, hollow sound, spalling | Every crack holds water that expands |
| Attic | Insulation depth, ventilation, daylight | A warm roof deck is what causes ice dams |
This is the part owners underestimate. The fall version of the job and the winter version of the same job are not the same job.
| Problem | Handled in October | Same problem in February |
|---|---|---|
| Clogged gutters | $250 to $600 to clear and reseal | $1,500 to $5,000 for ice dam removal plus interior repair |
| Soft fascia, 20 foot run | $600 to $1,500 to replace the board | $2,500 to $6,000 to rebuild fascia, soffit and gutter |
| Open flashing joint | $300 to $800 to reseal | $2,000 and up once the ceiling is wet |
| Open seams on a flat roof | $400 to $1,200 to patch | $3,000 to $8,000 with saturated insulation and an emergency call |
Ranges are Brooklyn pricing and depend on access, height and scope. The pattern holds regardless of the exact number: the winter version costs three to five times the fall version, because you are paying for the original repair plus the damage it caused plus emergency scheduling.
Three things close at once in Brooklyn.
An inspection in October leaves time to fix what it finds while the material will still cure. An inspection in December just tells you what is going to leak.
October or the first week of November. Brooklyn normally sees its first freeze in the second half of November, and roofing sealants, mortar and coatings need temperatures above about 40 degrees to cure. Booking in October leaves room to actually fix whatever the inspection finds inside the same season instead of tarping it until April.
Yes, and it is the single cheapest thing on the list. A gutter packed with wet leaves cannot drain, so the water sits and freezes. A 40 foot run of 5 inch gutter frozen solid carries well over 100 pounds, and that load pulls the hangers out of the fascia. Clear gutters before the first freeze and most winter gutter failures never happen.
Look for peeling paint in one concentrated stretch, a dark stain running down from behind the gutter, a gutter that sags in the middle, or hanger screws that have backed out. From a ladder, press the board with a screwdriver. Sound wood resists. Rotted fascia takes the tip with almost no pressure, and by then the sheathing behind it is usually wet too.
Emergency repairs, yes, and we do them all winter. Planned work is harder. Shingles will not seal down properly in the cold, most flat roof coatings and mortar need above 40 degrees, and snow on the deck stops work entirely. Winter repairs are usually holding measures that get redone in spring, so you pay twice.
MLM Construction Group inspects for free. We go on the roof, check the drains, flashing, seams, gutters and fascia, photograph what we find and give you a written scope with pricing. There is no charge and no obligation to have us do the work.
We go up, photograph the drains, flashing, seams, gutters, fascia and parapet, and tell you straight what has to be closed before the freeze and what can wait for spring. Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island. Licensed, insured & Google Guaranteed.
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