What Can Actually Be Done in a Storm
Being honest about this matters more than sounding capable.
In driving rain, on a wet roof, at wind speeds that make a ladder dangerous, the realistic goal is containment. Get the water stopped or diverted, protect the inside of the building, make the roof safe, and come back for the permanent repair when conditions allow.
What works in the wet: temporary sheeting and tarpaulins over a failed area, securing loose or lifted sheets and tiles, clearing a blocked outlet or valley that is causing overflow, diverting water inside the roof void away from ceilings and electrics, and making safe anything at risk of coming off the roof.
What does not work in the wet: torch-on, liquid membranes, most sealants, bedding and pointing, and concrete repair. All need a dry, prepared substrate. Applied wet, they fail, and then the permanent repair costs more because the failed material has to come off first.
Anyone who tells you they will permanently waterproof your roof during a cold front is either going to do it badly or is not going to do it at all.
What to Do Before We Arrive
Deal with the electrics first. Water in a ceiling void and lighting circuits are a genuine hazard. If water is running near light fittings or a distribution board, switch that circuit off at the board.
Get things out of the way. Furniture, electronics, rugs, anything that will be damaged. Move it rather than covering it.
Catch and contain. Buckets under active drips, towels around them to stop splash spread.
If a ceiling is bulging, do not stand under it. A plasterboard ceiling holding water can come down as a single sheet with a lot of weight in it. Clear the room. If you are confident and safe doing so, a small hole at the lowest point of the bulge releases the water into a bucket in a controlled way and often saves the ceiling. If you are not confident, leave it and clear the room.
Photograph everything before you move or clean anything, for your insurer.
Do not go onto the roof. A wet Cape Town roof in a 60kph north-wester is genuinely dangerous. Whatever is up there can wait for us.
When Emergencies Happen in Cape Town
The pattern is predictable. Around 70% of Cape Town rain falls between June and September, and it arrives as discrete cold fronts rather than steady rain. The first serious front of the season, often in May or early June, produces the most emergency calls of the year.
The reason is that the roof has been dry for months. Whatever the summer south-easter loosened, a lifted sheet edge, a cracked ridge, a peeled lap, has not been tested since. The first front tests all of it at once, at 50 to 65kph.
The practical conclusion: the cheapest emergency is the one prevented in March. If your roof gave you trouble last winter, it will give you more this winter, and dealing with it in autumn costs a fraction of dealing with it at 9pm in June.
