When the newly repaired roof leaks

[A.Fox]

Thank you again for your continued thoughts. I plan to be there while the roofer is on site tomorrow to best understand what they are seeing. For those trying to visualize, this is the area of the roof where we are experiencing the leak:

Before Janurary.jpg (1.3 MiB) Viewed 750 times

This photo is from the beginning of the year before any repairs were done.

And here is a diagram of the repairs:

Highlighted Roof Diagram.jpg (280.81 KiB) Viewed 750 times

Red and green indicate areas of full underlayment replacement; X's are individual tiles that were to be replaced. The copper roof vent in the photo is in the center, west facing red zone.

For my own purposes for tomorrow, I made my own diagram of the roof with the elements located as best as possible:

Roof Plan.jpg (239.52 KiB) Viewed 750 times

The dark gray region is the area that was visually confirmed as being fully replaced. The light gray region south of that is the area that was marked out to be replaced and was supposed to have been picked up on the last day of work. As I said though I did not have visual confirmation of that. The X is the hole in the roof that was originally identified as the likely cause of the leak. The thick dashed rectangle is where we are currently experiencing the leak through the ceiling, which is also the location of the previous through ceiling leak. You will also see the circle of the vent pipe right at the corner of the leak. The vent flashing seems like a good possibility if it is not just getting under a tile somewhere.

If I had done this overlay before, I would have said that the area of full repair needed to be extended at least another foot to cover the observed leak location. However at the same time, if you point out a leak to a roofing company, it seems that their proposed $10,000 repair would be crafted to be sure that all possible sources were accounted for. Tomorrow I plan to confirm exactly how far south they went with the new underlayment.

As far as observing in the attic. This is one of those time that I wished we had better access up there. It's already a tight space; with the low roof slope the head height is only about 4 to 5' and it is full of trusses every 4' to support the weight of the roof. Add to that an access hatch in a stupid location at the back of a closet and the 18" of blown in insulation up there. Even then with the double layer nature of the roof, I don't know if the failure point would necessarily present itself as a spot that lets in daylight.

[phil]

I would think that the roofer should take into consideration that they just finished, they were working right near where it leaks and you paid them a considerable chunk of money.

Id pay nice and expect them to fix the job they were hired for and assume they will look after it. I would certainly not go threatening them or saying nasty stuff.

If they did not act in a fair way I'd file a case in small claims court. I'm not sure what the difference is here and going to court would be a time consuming event for both you and them and they would likely rather go up on your roof for a half a day than go to court. Here there is a standard charge of $150 or so then it goes into process.. but I'm in Canada.
of course that is a last resort but if it were me I'd review what you need to do and if they dont play fair then I'd just say OK I'm going to take it to court then.. and they might react by fixing the issue but that's a last resort and not the first thing to try of course. I'm not saying get all nasty unnecessarily just know your rights. They will too and they wont' want a situation where they had to pay some other roofer's bill or to have to prepare and show up to defend their case. If it actually did get in court then you might not win anyway. my point is IF they got nasty you might use that as recourse.

I can see how they may argue if it was at the other end of the roof but you really did hire them and said the roof is leaking and now it still is and you paid 10 K and they worked right near the leak so I'd think you have a case. If they charged you a little more labor and said well it wasn't a new roof they might have a point.

you might to be able to see any light. I just though if you did it might just be a clue. you might be able to make a little movie with a selfie stick or something to avoid trying to go in there.

a tarp is of course the quick fix but I dont blame you for not wanting to go up there. If you do have to tarp make sure the tarp drapes over past the peak and it has to be well tied down wind can reap havoc on them. it might be possible to get one up there by throwing ropes up over the house but maybe it would get hooked on stuff. I would just use one large enough for the job ( not too big or it can become a giant kite) if you need to bide time. for the roofer I suspect the repair will be quick as it's just a spot and they can find it with a little investigation.

that style of roof should really last. I had one a few doors down it was a 70's spanish style house and they came and threw them all to the ground and replaced with shingles. I was really surprised they did that, maybe the deck was too rotten or something. obviously at least most of the clay tiles would have been ok before they hit the ground. I guess the labor didn't make it pay to save the used ones.

[GibsonGM]

Since you said this is a successful, active roofing company, I am willing to bet they come in with "wow, very surprising! Let's take a look!" and treat you fairly. I own a small painting company...this is how I would deal with a 'complaint' (I have never had any, tho I have had requests to do a bit more here or there, or to paint something not in the contract. And any painter/contractor can miss something. You just go take care of it - the word that you stand by your work is worth more than the original job, often times)

Yes, play nice, and see if they do too. I don't know any who would not...not ones who stay in business and score big industrial contracts, those difficult and pricey jobs, and enjoy the fruits of projects like that Stay positive!

[GinaC]

About looking in the attic -- the leak probably wouldn't show daylight, but hopefully you'd see a wetness trail or spot.

Oh, and since you said that you spent insurance money, I will tell you that my situation was similar, since my roof had to be replaced due to the historic golf-ball-sized hail we had that year.

The roofers dragged their feet to come address the problem, and I had to get my insurance company, USAA, after them.

[phil]

one reason why I decided to do my own. I know there are good ones but with my luck... Its a tough job and somewhat seasonal and the trade often seems difficult to hire. I tried getting estimates and both had reliability issues. If they have BBB accreditation it might mean something. If you've got reliable people try to keep them on it.

[A.Fox]

An update:

The roofers returned to inspect on Tuesday morning. Prior to them arriving I pulled up all of the prior inspection photos, and took my best current photos of the area as I could get from the ground. Comparing the two revealed that neither vent pipe had been reflashed. And one tile adjacent to the center vent pipe that was cracked and repaired with mortar in the prior report images remained in the same condition. It turns out that the replacement of these flashings had only been noted in the field report and had not made it on to the colored plan that was used as a guide for the roof repair, and therefore the work was not done.

They managed to get into our attic for inspection. They apparently did not see anything troubling up there. I also didn't get any definitive results from the inspection of the roof from above, but they determined that the best fix was to expand the are of new underlayment and to reflash the center vent pipe. They did the first step on Tuesday and returned Thursday with the additional materials required to finish the job. I haven't had a chance to take a look at the final product in daylight but I am hoping to be able to tomorrow morning. There was some question as to whether they would replace the lead flashing with lead or copper, so I am curious what was the final selection. Here is a diagram of roughly the area that they repaired based on my photos of them working, marked out with the diagonal hatch:

Roof Plan Update.jpg (235.31 KiB) Viewed 702 times

Their opinion is that this should take care of the potential for water to come through the roof. If there is still a leak, the next thing to look at would be if there is a crack in the cast iron vent pipe. We both thought that cause was fairly unlikely though since the vent stack runs primarily straight down to the basement, with an offshoot coming from the two second floor bathrooms in the attic. Even if it were cracked, it seems like it would take quite the force to drive rainwater through the side of the pipe.

Even so it makes me a little apprehensive that there could still be issues out there that we haven't uncovered causing the leak. Crossing my fingers that we have seen the last of it.

[Gothichome]

Well I to hope your leak is fixed. It's good your roofer, had no issues with coming by for a look and getting on to the repairs promptly.
Nice drawings by the way, you’re obviously proficient in CAD. Day job?

[phil]

im glad they are looking after it.
Mine are lead so I reused them. I noted that it was hard to get a really tight fit between the pipe and the lead so I just put a hose clamp around it. probably not the advised way

a little confession.. As a naughty kid of about 12 years old, we stole some of those lead flashing and cut circles around quarters with scissors.. they worked well in the vending machines. It probably helped start me into smoking. we needed three for a pack of smokes back then and our pockets were brimming with lead slugs

Another thing I'm wondering about myself is the use of zinc strips. some put strips of zinc on the roof and it prevents moss. evidently new roofing has moss prevention chemicals in it but I wonder how long it lasts or if zinc is still a good idea. often they would run a strip near the peak and that was enough to kill the moss before it formed. . I dont seem to see it on modern roofs. maybe it would be good on the tile roof?

[A.Fox]

Gothichome, you are correct. I'm also a restoration architect with about 7 years experience, but this is my first experience working with a house of this age (versus 1920s high rises and warehouses), and first experience with a clay tile roof.

Just last night I noticed that a house 4 blocks away from us (a house we had also considered buying) had the whole tile roof off and new roofing felt laid. Since I didn't see the tiles stacked up there anywhere, I'm assuming they scraped them. If that's the case, and if the timing had worked out, I wish we could have known. Their tile would have been a perfect match for our house, whereas our new replacement tiles are brighter and will need a few decades to age in to match the rest of the roof.

Phil, the idea of using zinc strips is a new one for me. I have never seen that around here, but I'll look into and see what the possibilities are.

The new vent flashing is in, and it is lead. It looks like the tiles are better fit around it now too. We've had a decent amount of rain since mid-last week and nothing yet. Next time I am home during a rain, I will need to push up the attic door and at least check if I hear any dripping.

[phil]

mine had a good layer of moss a few years back and I got rid of it using the stuff you can spray on the lawn. It's actually a moss killer and fertilizer. you spray it on the moss goes black , becomes detached. works best when its sunny and dry. I played with the hose from a ladder and coaxed it all down without going on the roof.. anyway that stuff works and of course its not an issue for you right now. I bought some and kept it over winter. It sort of went bad so I wouldn't buy it ahead of time again.