Most people worry about their shingles and forget the little rubber boot wrapped around every pipe sticking out of their roof. Those boots dry out and crack years before the shingles around them do — usually around the 8 to 10 year mark here in Georgia, with our heat and UV doing the real damage.
Once that rubber splits, water doesn’t need a storm to get in. A slow drip through a cracked boot can sit unnoticed in an attic for months and show up as a ceiling stain nowhere near where you’d expect a leak.
If your roof is pushing 10 years, walk outside and look up at every pipe sticking through it. It’s a cheap fix compared to the drywall and insulation repair that follows if you wait — we check every boot on the roof during a full inspection, because a brand new roof with old boots is still a roof that’s going to leak.