There’s nothing more aggravating than coming home and finding a yellowish stain on your ceiling caused from a roof leak, or worse, having to place buckets under the roof leak. Having a roof leak is a problem you want to solve immediately, or risk further damages and higher costly roof repairs.
In this article, I will explain to you how to do simple repairs to your roof. I’ll show you what procedures to use and what tools you’ll need to properly fix your roof leak correctly and safely. The faster you address your roof leak, the less likely you’ll have to worry about having rot, mold growth, and also, having mushy wet parts of your ceiling falling down damaging your rug or floor.
Roof Evaluation
1. The first step you want to take in evaluation your roof leak, is to go up into your attic with a flash light, measuring tape and a notebook. This way here, you can write down exact locations of your roof leak.
2. The second step you want to make is, shine your flash light up and along the rafters of your roof. You want to look for stains on your sheathing/underlayment. If there isn’t any stains to be found, this might be the first leak, and you
might not have any mold or underlayment damage. Next, have a look around your roof rafters, the ridge of your roof for anything wet, or damp. Once you’ve located the problem, or haven’t located the problem, don’t stop there!
3. Step three, have a look at all of your mechanicals, I.e vents, ducts, bathroom vents, etc.. You never know, you might not have a roof leak at all – That beats climbing on top of a roof! Feel around your duct work, be sure there isn’t any holes or penetrations in the duct work that would cause a leak. Locate your bathroom vent, be sure there isn’t any water trapped in the vent lines, or holes that could be the cause of your leak.
Use Caution
Once you have finished evaluating your roof, mechanics, and roof leak location(s), proceed to follow my roof repair guide. Note: If you don’t have the proper tools or skillset to repair you roof, hire a professional roof repair contractor. A roofing contractor has the proper skills and balance to climb on your roof and repair safely and correctly. So use caution when attempting your roof repair, you don’t want to risk a serious injury, or become paralyzed.
Tools required to perform a roof repair
* Strong ladder, one that can extend past the gutter line safely and efficiently
* Roof jacks with strong wood planks to safely stand upon
* Roof flashing
* Roof cement
* Roofing nails
* Hammer
* Flat-bar
* Roofing shingles
How to repair your roof
Once you have properly set up your equipment and located the roof leak, proceed to do the following steps.
1. Grab your flat-bar and start to gently lift up your damaged roof shingle, use illustration below.
Once you have safely lifted up your damaged roof shingle, follow this step.
2. Final step, grab a piece of metal flashing to cover the damaged area, one that extends past both tabs of the roof shingle. Once you have inserted the metal flashing under your roof shingle, dab roof cement under the metal flashing and on top of the metal flashing, to correctly bond the shingles together. Have a look at the illustration below.
Once you’ve finished the steps to repairing your roof, test your repair the following day to feel reassured you correctly solve the roof leak by doing a water test with your garden hose. This step takes two people, so have one of your buddy’s stay up in the attic while you spray your roof with water. If it passes the test, pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
Once again, if your roof is too steep, or you feel your not up to the challenge, hire a professional roof repair contractor. And if you’re located in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, Hire us to do your roof repair MA, RI !
If your flat or low slope roof is leaking and needs to be fixed, hire a flat roof repair contractor specializing in rubber roofs, modified bitumen and rolled asphalt roof repairs, and servicing all of MA, CT and RI.