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Diagnosing persistent roof leak

agm413 | Posted in Construction Techniques on March 14, 2022 04:55pm

Pictures for reference: https://imgur.com/a/O75UhT6

Over the past 2 winters I’ve been dealing with a persistent roof leak in the front are of my low slope roof. This is the high side of the slope and has a large overhang + small section between a party wall where the issue is likely starting but nothing as of yet has fixed the issue.

the 3 things that have been tried at various times:

Retarring top of roof, flashing to close a gap in the overhang soffit, and tar on the front facing portion of the siding.

Still to this day there is a leak when it either snows or there is heavy wind driven rain. 

I have some various pictures of the area in question, inside the attic point of view, and the repairs done as of now.

Has anyone run into similar persistent leaks on townhomes or low slops roofs. 

Seems like the issues is either the junction with the overhang, the party CMU wall, or siding/sheathing issues, but hard to tell for that one as the siding has yet to be pulled up on the exterior.

Reply

Replies

  1. BandonGlfr | Mar 14, 2022 05:54pm | #1

    I’ve had similar issues on the low sloped areas of a 15 year old roof in coastal Oregon where high wind driven rain happens frequently in winter/spring. Mine is an asphalt shingle roof and several people who inspected the roof said the low-sloped areas should never been roofed with asphalt shingles.
    After trying many fixes - patched ( remove & replace) small areas; tar; roll-on coatings etc, I finally replaced the entire roof. During tear-off it became apparent there where many areas where water got underneath shingles, rusted out roof nails and from that point the plywood became a sponge. The plywood sheets in about 6 areas on a 2000 sf roof were soaked, rotted, moss/algae even mushrooms were growing.
    As suggested by a few experts, low-sloped roofs need very specific materials (single ply, standing seem, stainless fasteners, etc) and experienced installers.

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