When the newly repaired roof leaks

[A.Fox]

Hi all,

Not sure if I’m looking for any particular guidance or just needing to work through our current situation. But if anyone does have some helpful advice I am all ears.

This spring we had fairly significant repairs made to our 95 year old clay tile roof. We were doing this to fix no less than four locations that leaked. Between our funds and insurance money we spent nearly $55,000 with a local clay tile specialist removing and resetting the tiles from 30% of the roof, replacing the original (1925) underlayment, many rotted boards found. We also had all broken tiles on the remaining roof reset, the main ridge repaired and reset and 4 of the 6 diagonal hip ridges repaired, reset, and regrouted.

We then proceeded to have our stair hall rewallpapered and repainted to get rid of the big brown streaks on the walls, laid a new stair runner, and beefed up the attic insulation.

Now four months later, we had a day long rain with periods of heavy downpour and some wind. Water is dripping in over the stair in the exact same place it was before all of the work, running down the wallpaper and splashing on the runner. As much as I love this house it feels like a sign we should thrown in the towel on this renovation.

I’ve called and emailed the roofing company, hoping to get them in and hopefully we can pinpoint the problem. I’m also hoping it’s a warranty issue rather than a new issue, because funds are tight now for anymore major housework.

[Gothichome]

AFox, it is disappointing to spend that kind of money and effort only to not fix a problem. I would think the roofer should have no issues with having a second look. When it comes down to it, his reputation and future work are at risk.
Hopefully it will be a no cost repair and not a failure in the unrestored section of roof. The problem with roof leaks is the water may be ingressing a long way away from were you are seeing it, that can make it hard to detect.
I certainly hope this will not sway from keeping the home. Once repaired you’ll be good for another hundred years.

[GinaC]

I don't know if this will help you at all, but in my last house, built in 1995, the trim around the chimney was the issue -- the water was getting in between it and the flashing. The fix was to caulk around it to plug up that crack.

The water was coming down from the corner of the living room. However, in the attic one could see where it was dripping from the roof, and then it was running down the slope of the roof a long way to get to that point in the living room!

So maybe more investigation needs to be done to find the actual entry for the water. It took 2 years and many angry calls to our roofers (it was also a new roof) to finally find the actual leak. I hope your problem gets resolved in much less time!

[1918ColonialRevival]

Water will always travel with gravity and will take the path of the least resistance. It's possible the water is getting under the tile from somewhere else, traveling underneath, and leaking into the house at a low point or small gap in the roof. Is there a chimney, dormer, or plumbing vent stack anywhere near the stairwell? If so, the culprit could be a bad piece of flashing.

Regardless, I would get the roofing company back out there. If it's in the area they repaired, it should be covered.

[A.Fox]

Thanks for all of the thoughts. We have the roofer coming back out on Tuesday. What I find interesting is that before we had the work done there was literally a baseball sized hole in our roof for many months and it never dripped as bad as it is now.

But with that repaired there are few obvious features that could cause leakage. The roof is a singular hipped rectangle with no valleys, the two chimneys are both external only passing through the eavesand exterior walls. In the general area of the leak there is the bathroom vent and about 4’ away but at about the same level as the leak is the copper attic vent. The attic vent was remanufactured new, and unless is wasn’t detailed correctly it doesn’t seem like it should be causing the problem. The vent pipe was also supposedly reflased, but I need to confirm that. I do want to clarify one thing with the roofer: Initially the repair area wasn’t wide enough to match the drawings or to extend over this leak, and they were supposed to extend it. That happened on the last day of work though so I did not get visual confirmation that work was done.

One way or another I have a high degree of confidence with the roofers ability. They have an impressive portfolio of projects including courthouses and university buildings and possibly one of the best in the region. My biggest fear that the answer will be that we should be also pulling up the tile and replacing the underlayment in the 230 sf of roof between this repair and the next which really isn’t in the budget for this year.

Well that and my partner is now ready to put the house up on the market tomorrow, but that’s a different matter.

[1918ColonialRevival]

It's hard to say for sure without seeing it in person, but I'm thinking the waste stack vent or the attic vent are the primary suspects. Even though they were both re-done, all it takes is to have a single point that's slightly raised or uneven for water to get in.

[GinaC]

I'm of the opinion that it is the roofer's job to stop any leaks. If there are leaks after they finish, the roofers are responsible and you shouldn't have to pay one penny more to fix it.

[GibsonGM]

I'm of the opinion that it is the roofer's job to stop any leaks. If there are leaks after they finish, the roofers are responsible and you shouldn't have to pay one penny more to fix it.

ONLY in the section they repaired. If one cannot afford to replace an entire roof, the old portion isn't their responsibility. They can't be responsible for something they did not work on. Hopefully it's a detail missing at the vent or something. Once detected, the leak should be shown to the owner either in person or by cell phone vid from up there, to confirm where it is (thus, to confirm if it's *free* or not). They sound like a big time company, and I'm sure they'll take care of you, if they're doing that other (municipal) work.

As noted, water can really travel. I had one small piece of leaky flashing on my center chimney, and if the wind blew from the south during a storm, a little water would get in and run down my (exposed) post n beam rafter there, puddling on the floor over by the knee wall, perhaps 1 cup of water per storm. This was before building in my cape's 2nd floor, so you could SEE it happen. Easy fix (for me, off of a roof ladder) and has never done it again. Might've been hard if it was built, as the puddle was near the vent stack. I hope this will be the case for you too, A.Fox (the easy fix part)!

[GinaC]

Yes, of course. I'm sorry, I read the O.P. again and realized that the entire roof was not replaced. I do hope that the leak turns out to be within the scope of the work already done.

[phil]

If you can go in the attic when it's light out and look up, perhaps you can see the highest point that's wet. If you can see any light then you might try to stick a piece of wire or something through from the attic to locate the same spot from up on the roof.