Whenever it rains there’s a steady drip falling into my back room, which I call my “lab.” It’s gone on so long now that the drywall ceiling has split at the seam and is drooping.
I’ve been up on the roof so many times now, with tubes of roof cement in my caulking gun and extra shingles. I’ve looked all over, I’ve sealed every possible gap or overlap I can find. Nothing works. There are vents for my hot water heater and clothes dryer on this part of the roof, but as far as I can tell they’re not the source of the leak.
I’m willing to call a roofer and pay the money, but I thought I’d come here first. Any ideas?
Mods: Please note I managed to refrain from naming this thread “Dopers: Fill My Wet Hole!”
I tend to favor a new roof, but IF you can get up in the attic, next time there’s a rainstorm, go up and look for the source. I have been able to find the source once, and failed a number of times. Unless your roof suffered some sort of foreign object damage, which may not be outwardly visible, I suspect your whole roof is about ready to be replaced.
Be very careful in the attic, I knew someone who electrocuted himself up in the attic.
Yeah, but here’s the thing: it is a new roof. The house was completely renovated, and as part of that received a new roof and new siding, before I bought it in May 1998. So it’s only 3+ years old.
But there’s prior evidence the roofers did a shoddy job. It’s a 78-year-old house, and it had a chimney, but the fireplace had been walled-in in the renovation. The chimney was leaning and had also been badly flashed; I had a different leak into one of the front rooms of the house.
I removed the chimney brick by brick until it was below the level of the roof, then replaced it with a turbine ventilator and re-flashed it. The leak went away.
That’s right, I replaced the chimney and flashed the new ventilator. I’m pretty handy, which is why I’ve made so many of my own attempts to seal the leak over my lab.
And NotMrKnowItAll, I have an attic but it’s in two separate sections, and there’s no entrance to the part that’s over the lab. I’d have to cut a hole in the ceiling to get into it. Of course, there’s a hole there now anyway; should I bite the bullet, cut it big enough to climb into, and find the leak that way?
Well, one the one hand, you know you have to replace the lab ceiling anyway, on the other, you don’t want to leave a gaping hole in your lab up into the attic, just not good. What I would do is make a hole (watch out for insulation, wear eye protection), and cover it with a piece of plywood for the time being(screwed up into the ceiling joists). It doesn’t have to lie flush with the ceiling, just cover your access hole. Next big rain, remove it and try to find the leak. After fixing the roof, remove the damaged sheetrock, and replace. The insulation will be a big headache, as will the sheetrock. you may want to have this particular project done by someone else.
One more thing, since the house was build in the 20’s be sure to watch out for knob and tube wiring. The bare wires are run in porcelain tubes drilled throught the ceiling joists. the ends of the runs have porcelain knobs. See: Knob and Tube
I vote for the “cut the hole in the ceiling and look for the source of the leak” option. The insulation and
drywall isn’t that big a deal, particularly if you arrange it so that the hole lines up with the joists so you can fasten the patch easily.
But I’m guessing that even if you do this, the leak will remain elusive – water can travel a long way. You say that the dryer vent is in this section of roof? Is there any chance that rainwater can be entering the vent? That’s where I’d look first for the leak.
Can you cut a hole in the ceiling of a closet somewhere? You could even put in a proper attic trap door, if it was in a hall or closet where it wouldn’t be seen.
No closets in the lab, lesa, but I think I may go buy one of those attic trap doors at Home Despot and cut the hole to fit it.
Are we all agreed, then, that the way to tackle the problem is to cut a hole, wait until it rains and then follow the rain back up to the leak?
I probably should have mentioned that there’s an eave involved. The part of the house that includes the lab and my laundry room was added on to the original house many decades later, so the roof over this part is almost flat, with only a slight slope, and the gabled roof of the rest of the house overhangs it.
…Overhangs it just low enough that I can’t see underneath to know what’s going on in there, but I feel certain rain must be flowing under there and somehow getting into the attic and the lab.
You didn’t mention weather you had dormers.
We had a problem like yours and I found that water was entering the window caseing,running down inside the wall and across the rafters.
No roofer would find this problem.
As a emergency roof repair I suggest a can of rubberized auto undercoating.
So you have a shed roof with a very small pitch. There probably isn’t an attic anyway. Is it shingled with regular shingles, which should be uses with pitches at or above 4:12? for pitches between that and 2:12 you can use Roll Roofing, between 1:12 and 4:12 you can use Double-Coverage Roll Roofing, aka "half-lap. Be sure to check what kind of roofing in place as well as the pitch.
As for the overhanging eaves, if you cannot easily see how well the shingles are attached, how well do you suppose they are attached? I suspect the shingles are face nailed near the top of the roof, check out for nail heads. I guess you could seal them, but that’ll leak eventually.
NotMrKnowItAll, there is an attic, but it’s very low. If “roll roofing” is what I think it is, then that’s what I have over the lab. There are no single shingles, but rather three large overlapping sheets. And I’ve already sealed all the nail heads and the places where the sheets meet.
I think I’ll take a picture of the roof soon, then scan, upload and post a link to it, so y’all can see what I’m talking about.