Repair or replace your roof

Lean toward repair when

• The damage is in one area: a few shingles, one flashing, one vent.
• The roof is less than about two thirds through its expected life.
• It is slate and most slates are sound. Before replacing a slate roof, the Park Service says to look for isolated damage and worn flashing first, along with leaky gutters, since those often cause the leak.

Lean toward replacement when

• Shingles are curling or bare across several slopes.
• Leaks keep coming back in different places.
• There are already two layers. The City of Cincinnati says re-covering a roof on a detached house generally does not need a building permit if the house has one to three units and no more than two layers of roofing material. A third layer is off the table.
• The deck is soft in more than a spot or two.

The "25% rule"

The 25% rule comes from the Florida Building Code: no more than 25 percent of a roof or roof section may be repaired or replaced in a 12-month period unless that section is brought up to current code. Ohio has no such statewide rule. You will still hear it from roofers and adjusters, so ask what they mean by it and where it comes from.

Get both prices

Ask the roofer to price the repair and the replacement side by side, with what each one includes. Then you can judge whether a repair buys enough years to be worth it.