Can you put a tarpaulin on a leaking roof?

The sensible answer to a leak at night is to stop the water getting in, and a sheet over the damaged area does exactly that. The trouble is how it gets there. A wet pitched roof is slippery, tiles can be loose without looking it, and a ladder leaning on a gutter can shift under your weight. Quick fixes in bad weather are exactly when people come off roofs, so we would rather you stayed down.

There is plenty you can do from inside. Stand a bowl beneath the drip, shift furniture and roll back the rugs. If the ceiling is bulging with trapped water, make a small hole at its lowest point, well away from any light, so it drains into a bowl instead of coming down all at once. Stay out from under it while you do. Then ring a roofer, who has the ladders, harness or scaffold access to get a cover on safely. Our page on making a roof safe explains what the first visit involves.

A tarpaulin pinned down with a few nails and bricks will not last a gale. The wind gets underneath, the sheet billows like a sail, and it drags across the tiles around it. To avoid that, the cover has to run past the damage on every side, over the ridge (the top line of the roof) where it can, and be held to solid timber rather than to the tiles themselves.

The usual method is to wrap the sheet's edges round timber battens so the fixings spread the load, then screw those battens to the rafters or the existing roof battens. Each edge needs to be taut, with the lower edge dropping over the gutter so water runs off cleanly and does not get behind the fascia. Where a hole is large, a sheet of plywood goes down first so the cover does not sag and pool water. It is quick work for someone who does it regularly, and awkward for someone who does not, particularly with the wind getting up and the light going.

A tarpaulin is a weather cover and nothing else. It does not replace a missing tile, bed a ridge, dress a flashing or relay a valley. It also hides the damage, which is a drawback because the roofer needs to see exactly what has failed before pricing the repair. The sheet comes off for the survey, then goes back on if the weather is still bad.

Sheeting can trap moisture too. If the roof structure is already damp, a sealed cover over the top slows the drying, and condensation can form on the underside of the sheet. For that reason it should stay on for days, not months. Think of it like a plaster on a cut: it keeps things clean until the proper treatment, and the longer it stays, the more questions it raises. How long a stopgap lasts depends on the roof and the weather, which our answer on temporary repair lifespan covers in more detail.

Where a gale did the damage, expect your insurer to ask for evidence, and a tarpaulin hides most of it. Which? says that if you pay for an emergency fix yourself, the insurer should be told and the receipts kept. Structural engineers' guidance adds that pictures of the affected areas, and a note of any temporary covering, belong in the report you send.

So take photographs first: the ceiling, the loft, the outer face of the roof as seen from the lawn, and any debris in the garden. Pictures taken once a cover is on show much less. When a cover goes on from us, the damage is photographed before the sheet is unrolled, and the images come to you with the quote. Whether a claim succeeds is for the insurer to decide, but dated, clear evidence makes that conversation far easier, and it costs you nothing but a few minutes with a phone. Our guide to photographing roof damage shows what to capture.

Once the water is stopped, the diagnosis begins. Is it a few slipped tiles, split lead, a torn flat-roof membrane or storm damage that calls for a bigger job? A roofer looks, documents every fault and gives a plain verdict: will a repair hold, or is the roof past it? Pictures of your own roof back that verdict up. Storm damage on a sound roof is often local, and a local repair is then enough.

Our written quote then gives you one total. Access, the area to be repaired and what turns up when the sheet is lifted all move the figure, and a scaffold tower may be needed to reach the damaged section safely. The wider picture of urgent work is on our emergency roof repairs page.