Home repair

[notme]

The roof over my porch leaks at the place where it connects to the house. Does anyone know what I should check first? I have no roof repair experience. 

I can't see anything that is obviously wrong.

[Hameedeh]

Since water flows, it might not be leaking from the area you think it is. My guess is the flashing is old or installed improperly. Do you have broken shingles or hail damage? 

[notme]

2 hours ago, Hameedeh said:

Since water flows, it might not be leaking from the area you think it is. My guess is the flashing is old or installed improperly. Do you have broken shingles or hail damage? 

 

Nothing that I can see. 

Only there's some metal (?) rectangular pieces not attached to anything just lying on the roof. I actually only climbed the ladder and peered over. I haven't looked very closely yet. My smallest children try to follow me everywhere I go, so climbing ladders can be problematic. 

[Hameedeh]

56 minutes ago, notme said:

Only there's some metal (?) rectangular pieces not attached to anything just lying on the roof. I actually only climbed the ladder and peered over. I haven't looked very closely yet. My smallest children try to follow me everywhere I go, so climbing ladders can be problematic. 

Unattached metal pieces does not sound good at all! Either it was attached before and came off or someone was repairing and did not finish the job? The metal pieces might be flashing. I remember watching a video about it. Sorry, I don't think this is do it yourself. You need a professional to climb up there and repair it. You can't have the kids hanging around and climbing the ladder. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQVSinfA6OA

[notme]

Hey, wow, thanks! It's flashing and it's probably the cause of the leaks. The porch isn't that large, just a few pieces. Probably it was incorrectly installed and the wind broke it loose.

I think I can do this. 

[notme]

This is what it should look like:

And while I or my son are up there, (he volunteered - he likes to work on the roof) we need to clean out the plumbing stack vent. We're having noises in our drains.

Hopefully cleaning the vent will fix it. 

[notme]

This is what it was like before:

In addition to the flashing not being attached, there was a lot of debris and leaf matter along the edge. (House has asphalt shingles, porch has metal roof.) I cleaned all that out first. There is some staining from tannins, but it's in pretty good condition. At a later time I might paint the metal roof, just for looks, but you can't see it from the ground anyway so it's not urgent at all. 

And now, all fastened back:

[Hameedeh]

Your roof looks good now! Great job!