Leak repair
Two thirds of the work in a leak call is diagnosis. The repair itself is often an hour.
People say “my roof is leaking” and picture a hole. In practice the field of a roof, the plain expanse of shingle, rarely lets water through until it is genuinely finished. Water gets in where the field stops and has to meet something else.
Where it actually gets in here
Pipe boots. The rubber collar around a plumbing vent, cracked by heat and ultraviolet. This is the single most common roof leak in this part of Texas and it is cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.
Chimney and wall flashing. Anywhere a roof plane runs into vertical masonry. Bryan has a lot of older masonry, and a lot of it has been “repaired” with sealant at some point, which buys two or three years.
Valleys. Gulf storms drop a great deal of water very quickly and valleys carry all of it. Debris dams are the usual trigger, particularly where trees overhang.
Around skylights. Fewer here than in some markets, but when there is one, it is a strong candidate.
Gutters that are not doing their job. A blocked gutter fills, the water backs up over the top of the fascia and under the bottom course of shingles. That presents exactly like a roof leak and no amount of work on the roof will fix it.
Why the stain is not under the entry point
Water comes through, lands on the deck or a rafter, and runs along the timber until something stops it: a joist, a nail, a light fitting. That is where it drips and where the ceiling stains. Ten feet of travel is unremarkable.
So a stain in the middle of a bedroom does not mean a hole in the middle of the bedroom. It means somebody has to start uphill of it and work the details.
When to stop repairing
Repair is right while the field has life and one detail has failed. It stops being right when the shingles have gone brittle enough that lifting a course to work under it breaks it, when the shingle is discontinued and cannot be matched, or when you are on your third repair in two years and paying for a roof in instalments.
Questions people ask
- It only leaks in heavy rain. Is that still a roof problem?
Usually yes, and it narrows things down. Intermittent leaks that need volume point at valleys, at flashing where water is being directed rather than shed, or at a blocked gutter backing water up under the bottom courses.
- Can a leak be found without rain?
Often. A hose test done properly, starting low and working up, reproduces most of them. It is slow and methodical and a company that will not do it is guessing.
- There is no stain but the attic smells damp. What is that?
Possibly condensation rather than a leak. In this climate warm humid air reaching a cool deck will wet it without a drop coming through the roof. That is a ventilation problem and it is described below.