Can I find out whether my roof was permitted in Harahan?

Usually yes, though not by yourself in thirty seconds. The City of Harahan keeps its own permit records and its online portal does have a permit search, but that search sits behind an account login rather than being open to the public. In practice it is a call to the Regulatory Department on (504) 737-6765, and we make it as part of the inspection. The important part is asking the right authority: if the property is in River Ridge or Elmwood it is unincorporated and its records sit with Jefferson Parish, not the City.

Why does my Harahan address not tell you which office to search?

Because postal code 70123 covers the City of Harahan and also River Ridge and Elmwood, which are unincorporated Jefferson Parish. The City and the parish keep separate permit records. The property boundary decides which set applies, not the address on the post.

What can an inspection not tell me?

What is underneath the covering. Soft decking and water that has reached the structure are found when the covering comes off. A good report says plainly what was seen, what is inferred from it and what cannot be known until a tear off, rather than presenting all three as the same thing.

Should I get an inspection before buying a house?

It is one of the cheaper pieces of due diligence on a property, and in Harahan it is worth pairing with the permit history check, because the two together tell you whether the roof is what the seller says it is and whether the last work on it went through an office.

How long does an inspection take?

Usually 45 to 90 minutes on site depending on the size and pitch of the roof and how much detail there is to photograph. The written report follows the visit.

Is an inspection a warranty on the roof?

No. It is a record of condition on the day of the visit. It does not guarantee future performance, and any report that implies it does is overstating what an inspection can do.

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Roof Inspection in Harahan, LA

Big Easy Roofing inspects roofs across Harahan and east bank Jefferson Parish. You get a written report with dated photographs. On a 70123 address there is a second thing worth doing at the same time, and almost nobody does it: asking whether the last roof was permitted at all, and which of the two authorities that cover this postal code would hold the record.

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Service

City

Written reportWhat you get

Dated photographsEvery checklist item

Permit historyWe ask the City, you get the answer

45 to 90 minTypical visit

Harahan roof inspection at a glance

An inspection is a written record, not an opinion. You get dated photographs of every checklist item, so the condition of the roof on the day is documented whether you are buying, selling, or working out whether a repair will hold. On a 70123 address the paperwork history is worth checking alongside the roof itself.

You get a written report

With dated photographs

Every checklist item photographed and dated, covering the field of the roof, the flashings, the penetrations, the valleys and the eave line. A verbal all clear is not a record and is no use to a buyer, a seller or anyone else six months later.

The permit history is a question with an answer

We ask on your behalf

The City of Harahan keeps its own permit records, separately from Jefferson Parish. Its online portal has a permit search, but it is behind an account login rather than open to the public, so in practice this is a call to the Regulatory Department. We make it as part of the inspection.

Check the right authority or you get a false blank

City or parish

Postal code 70123 covers the City of Harahan and the unincorporated communities of River Ridge and Elmwood. Ask the wrong authority and you get nothing back, which reads exactly like there never was a permit. The boundary is settled first.

What an inspection cannot tell you

What is under the covering

An inspection records what is visible and what the visible evidence implies. Soft decking and water that has reached the structure are found when the covering comes off, which is why a report says what is known and what is inferred rather than blurring the two.

Worth doing before you buy

And before you claim

On a purchase it tells you what you are taking on. Ahead of a claim it establishes the condition of the roof on a known date, with photographs, which is a record nobody can reconstruct afterwards.

The details are where it fails

So that is where we look

Coverings in this climate rarely fail across the open field. The inspection weights the joints, the pipe boots, the step flashing and the valley metal, because that is the order things actually go in.

An inspection report is a record of condition on the day of the visit and is not a warranty or a guarantee of future performance. Call Big Easy Roofing on (504) 800-8196 to book one on your Harahan roof.

What gets checked, and what each item is telling you

The checklist is weighted toward the details rather than spread evenly over the roof, because that is the order coverings fail in here. Each item is photographed and dated whether it passes or not, so the report is a record rather than a list of problems.

Checklist item	What we photograph	What it tells you	Usual first failure
Pipe boots and penetrations	Each boot, close and in context	The most common single entry point for water on a roof of this age	Split or perished collar
Step and counter flashing	Every wall and chimney junction	Whether the joint between roof and wall is still sealed	Lifted or short flashing
Valleys	Full run of each valley	Where the most water concentrates, so where wear shows first	Open seam or worn metal
Field of the covering	Each elevation, plus close ups	Service life left, from granule loss, brittleness and lifting	Granule loss at the slope
Eave line, fascia and soffit	The full run and any staining	Whether water has already been getting behind the edge	Staining or soft timber

The report records condition on the day. What is under the covering is found when the covering comes off, and a report that pretends otherwise is not worth having.

Was the last roof permitted, and by whom

This is the half of a Harahan inspection that almost nobody does. Reroofing has needed a permit since 2025, so recent work should have a record. Two catches. You have to know which of the two authorities holds it, and the City portal keeps its search behind a login rather than open to the public.

Reroofing has been a permitted activity since 2025

R.S. 37:3737(I)

Louisiana requires any municipality or parish that issues construction permits to permit and inspect roof construction and reroofing. The requirement came in through Act 239 of 2025. Both the City of Harahan and Jefferson Parish issue permits, so a reroof since then should have gone through one of them.

How the record is actually obtained

A call, not a web search

The City of Harahan takes applications through the MyGovernmentOnline portal, where Harahan is carried as its own permitting jurisdiction. The portal does have a permit search, but it sits behind an account login, so it is not a lookup a homeowner can just run. The practical route is the Regulatory Department on (504) 737-6765, and we make that call for you.

Search the wrong authority and you get a false blank

70123

The City of Harahan and unincorporated Jefferson Parish keep separate records. A property in River Ridge or Elmwood will not appear in the City's system no matter how many permits it has had. An empty result from the wrong office is not evidence of anything.

What a missing record does and does not mean

Read it carefully

A blank can mean the work predates the current requirement, that it sat with the other authority, or that it genuinely was not permitted. It is a question to ask rather than a conclusion to draw, and we will tell you which of those we can rule out.

The order that makes the check worth doing

Establish which authority covers the property first, from the boundary rather than the postal address. Postal code 70123 spans the City of Harahan and the unincorporated communities of River Ridge and Elmwood, so the address alone cannot answer it. The roof replacement page sets out that split in full.

Then ask that authority, and only that one. Doing it the other way round produces an empty result that looks like a finding and is not.

What we will not tell you about a permit gap

We will tell you what the record shows and what it does not show. We will not tell you what a missing permit means for your sale, your insurance or your liability, because those are questions for a lawyer, your agent and your insurer respectively, and a roofer giving you an answer on them is a roofer exceeding what he can actually verify.

What it is useful for is scoping. A roof with no permit record and visible age is a different conversation from one with a recent permitted replacement behind it.

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What an inspection finds on a roof in this climate

Harahan sits on the east bank of the Mississippi in Jefferson Parish, hot and humid for most of the year, which produces a predictable pattern of wear. That predictability is what makes a checklist worth having rather than a walk around and an opinion.

Heat ages the covering from the details outward

The joints move against each other every day the roof heats and cools. Pipe boot collars perish, sealant at flashings loses its grip and valley metal wears where the water concentrates, all of it well before the field of the covering gives up.

So the report leads on those items. A roof that photographs well across the field and badly at the penetrations is a repair, and knowing that is the difference between spending hundreds and spending thousands.

Attic heat is half the ageing story and it is invisible from outside

Ventilation that is blocked, undersized or short circuited cooks the underside of the covering and takes years off it. It is one of the few findings that explains why a roof has aged faster than its years.

It is also cheap to fix relative to what it costs to ignore, which is why it goes in the report rather than being treated as an upsell.

A dated record is worth more than a verdict

The value of an inspection six months later is the photographs and the date, not the opinion. Condition on a known day is a thing nobody can reconstruct afterwards, and it is what a buyer, a seller or an adjuster will actually ask for.

That is also why the report separates what was seen from what is inferred from it. The two are not the same and a report that blurs them is less useful, not more.

Big Easy Roofing Process

Four steps. The first one is the boundary, because on a 70123 address it decides whose permit records are the right ones to look at.

A roofing inspector photographing flashing detail on a residential roof

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01 Establish which authority covers the address

City of Harahan or unincorporated Jefferson Parish. This decides which permit records apply to the property, and searching the wrong set returns a misleading blank.

02 Inspect against the checklist and photograph every item

Field, flashings, penetrations, valleys and the eave line. Each item photographed and dated whether it passes or not.

03 Ask the right authority for the permit history

Whether a previous reroof on the property went through the office that covers it, and what the record does and does not show. The City portal search needs an account, so this is a call we make rather than a lookup you run.

04 Written report, with what is known separated from what is inferred

Condition on the day, the photographs behind it, and a plain statement of what cannot be known until the covering comes off.

Everything else we do in Harahan

The rest of the Big Easy Roofing services available in Harahan, each with its own page, crew and written scope. An inspection is the cheapest way to find out which of them you actually need, because it puts the condition of the roof and the paperwork behind it on record before anybody quotes you for work.

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