Roofing in Austin is a heat trade that has to be told apart from the freeze leaks people blame on shingles. South and west slopes bake until granules slide and the mat britles. Low bungalow attics hold that heat. Metal roofs on hill-country houses expand, flash, and show every lazy screw. Spring wind and an occasional hailstorm still mark a slope, but a ceiling stain the morning after a hard freeze is often a pipe in the attic, not a hole in the field.
Look up only after you have looked at the plumbing path. If the stain sits under a known supply run and appeared on the thaw, call that what it is. If the stain grows only when rain falls, get into the attic and find daylight at a boot, a valley, or a sidewall. Additions on older houses create messy ties that leak in a gully-washer. Oak limbs scrape and puncture. Those are roof problems, and they deserve their own photos.
Hail here is real and still not the Dallas pattern. You may see spatter on metal and a bruise you can feel, especially after a storm that crossed the hills. Treat it as its own inspection, not as the default explanation for every worn south slope. Heat aging looks like bald granules and brittle tabs without fresh spatter. Say which one you see. A new surface will not fix an attic that cannot breathe, so ask about ventilation on these low roofs.
Cover an active rain leak and leave the damaged material visible. Do not tear out ceiling drywall from a freeze stain until the pipe has been seen, or you will mix two trades and confuse the claim. Ask how flashing will be handled at stucco and limestone walls, where a tight caulk joint fails as the house moves through heat. Deck condition matters more than a pretty ridge. Say if the roof is asphalt, metal, or tile.
Have the address, the rough age of the roof, and whether the stain follows rain or followed the thaw. Name limbs, hail spatter, or a slope that simply cooked. Ask for a visit that can tell a roof leak from an attic pipe. Call the number on this page.