Why roofs fail
Ask anyone who repairs roofs where they leak and the answer is the same: not in the middle, but wherever the roof meets something else.
The six
What this region does to a roof
The storm line coming off the Blue Ridge. Hail often enough that a significant event drives a season of replacements. Ice damming at the eaves every winter. And a mature tree canopy over the postwar suburbs that keeps north slopes from drying and fills valleys with leaf litter. Most reported leaks here trace back to one of those four.