Many Ladue yards have a small pond, a fountain basin or a recirculating stream near the house. Most are powered by a cord that comes off a weatherproof outlet on the wall, and many have a pair of flexible tubing lines that climb to a fountain head or a weir. When the roof is coming off, those cords and lines often run straight under the eave, right where the crew stages ladders, drops debris and sets the chute for the dumpster. A roof bid rarely mentions them. This page is for the homeowner who is deciding what to do next, and it covers what to check on the pond side before the roof date is set.
Where the cord actually runs
Walk the house with a phone and look at the pump. Follow the electrical cord back to its outlet and note whether it crosses the gutter line, sits under a downspout, or passes under the eave at the point where a crew would stand on a ladder. Do the same for any tubing that carries water up to a fountain or a waterfall. Pond tubing is soft and gets pinched by a ladder foot more easily than most people expect. Note whether any part of the pond sits below a downspout discharge, because that is where roof water arrives in a heavy rain.
Measure the cord too. A short cord that reaches only to the wall outlet will be stretched or unplugged the moment a ladder is set near it, and a stretched cord is how a pump gets pulled off its base. If the cord has been spliced or extended at any point, mark that splice on your sketch, because it is the first place a crew will catch it.
What the tear-off can reach
On a steep residential tear-off, shingles, nails and old underlayment come down in a wide arc from the eave. A crew does not aim debris at the pond, but a bundle that slides off a ladder or a sheet of old felt can land anywhere inside the drop zone. Pond liners are thin, pump intakes are small, and a cracked pump housing is easy to miss on the day of the work. If the pump is knocked off its base, a small pond can drain in an hour on a warm afternoon, and the fish or plants will be the first to show it.
For that reason the crew should know where the pump sits before the first bundle is carried up. The homeowner should decide whether the pump is moved, covered or left running during the work. Each choice has a cost in time and in cord length, and each one should appear in the written scope instead of being settled in a driveway conversation.
Downspouts that feed the water
A downspout that empties into a pond or into the bed beside it is worth a second look before the tear-off. Some Ladue lots route roof water into a rain garden or a pond on purpose, and the roof work can change how much water arrives there. A new gutter line, a new downspout elbow or a changed discharge point all alter where the water goes in a storm. Ask the roofer whether any downspout will be removed, shortened or rerouted during the work, and ask who reconnects it when the crew leaves.
If the pond is fed by a downspout, the homeowner should also check whether the outlet is blocked by leaves, grit or shingle granules during the tear-off. Granules wash down a gutter quickly, and a pond filter that clogs in the first week after a roof job is an easy problem to avoid with a bucket and a few minutes of attention.
Freeze and thaw, and the pond line through winter
A St. Louis winter cycles the ground through freezing and thawing many times. A pump line left sitting in standing meltwater under the eave can freeze into a block of ice, and a pump that was run dry in the fall can seize when it is switched on again in the spring. Ice at the eave also pushes meltwater uphill under the shingles, and the same meltwater can pool at the base of a downspout that feeds the pond. If the roof is being replaced in cold months, the pump and cord should be lifted off the ground and kept out of the path of the ice that forms in the gutter line.
Ask whoever services the pond what they recommend for the cold months, and ask the roofer how the work will be scheduled around that advice. A crew working on a cold day may need the pond drained or the pump pulled, and that decision is easier to make in October than on the morning the trucks arrive.
The dumpster chute and the pond edge
The dumpster is usually placed on the driveway or on a level pad near the house, but the chute from the roof can sit over a garden bed or a pond edge if the yard is tight. Ask where the chute will rest and whether any stone border, pump cover or pond ledge will carry the weight of the crew or the bin. A small pond edge that cracks under a roof crew's foot traffic is a costly repair that nobody planned for, and it belongs in the scope as a line.
What to ask each roofer
- Where will the crew stage materials, and does that area include the pond edge or the pump cord?
- Who moves the pump and cord, who puts them back, and is that work written in the scope?
- Will the drop zone be covered or fenced near the water feature?
- If the pond must be drained for the work, who drains it, where does the water go, and who refills it?
- Will any downspout feeding the pond be removed, shortened or reconnected, and who checks the flow when the work is done?
- How will damage to the pump, cord or tubing be recorded in the photo log before and after the work?
A roofer who answers these questions in writing has thought about the yard. A roofer who says the pond will be fine without checking it has not.
Keep the pond out of the roof price, but not out of the plan
Pump moves, cord rerouting and a temporary drain are usually small items, and they belong in the scope as named lines, not as a promise made at the door. If a separate pond service handles the pump, the roofer's written scope should say which items the roofer will handle and which the pond service will handle, with a date for each. The homeowner should be able to read that page and know who is doing what before the crew arrives.
Keys Roofing puts a written scope with photos and measurements into the homeowner's hands, and the photos can include the pump, the cord route and the tubing before the first nail goes in. Those photos are the record of where the water feature sat on the day the roof work started. If a question comes up before the roof date is set, the office can be reached at (314) 220-2333.
Before the roof date is set
Write down where the pump sits, how long the cord is, and whether any tubing crosses the eave. Decide whether the pond will be drained, covered or left running during the work. Then send the roofer one written question about the water feature and time the reply. A clear answer in writing is the thing to compare, not a quick yes over the phone.