A Roof Leak, Traced Past
the Hole We Could See

What the Homeowner Saw

The homeowner reported a leak. On the site visit there was daylight coming through the roof at one point, and water damage to the wood at an upstairs window below it — enough to price the work honestly, and enough to know the two were connected.

What the assessment could not tell us was how far it had travelled. Water enters at one point and runs along the underside of the deck before it shows itself, so the wet spot inside is almost never under the hole. When the shingles came back, the plywood carried a dark bloom that spread well beyond the opening, and a seam between two sheets sat right in its path.

That changes what the repair has to be. Patching over a visible hole and re-laying the shingles would have looked finished on the day and failed at the seam in the first sustained rain. So the rot was cut back to sound material, small voids were filled with foam from inside and the weakened section reinforced, and then both the opening and the full seam line were sealed and taped.

Sealed, Taped, Then Covered

Sealant was worked into the opening and along the seam, and Sto tape was set over both. Self-adhering membrane underlayment went down over the whole repaired area — bedded, not just laid — so the repair sits under a continuous sheet rather than a series of joints.

New shingles were bedded in sealant and fixed with additional nailing through the courses over the repair. Sound existing shingles were kept so the slope still reads as one roof; torn and lifted ones were taken off and replaced. On the underside, membrane was bedded so that if water ever does find its way in again, it is carried out to the gutter line instead of sitting on timber.

The Gutter Was Doing the Opposite of Its Job

The gutter along that elevation was packed solid with rotted leaf debris for its whole length. A gutter in that condition holds water against the fascia and pushes it back under the shingle edge, which is a slow way to manufacture exactly the damage we had just repaired. It was cleared out and re-pitched so the run actually falls.

Twelve Windows, While the Access Was Up

The water-damaged wood at the affected upstairs window was removed and made good. With scaffolding already standing on that elevation, it made no sense to come back for the rest — all 12 upstairs windows were repaired where they needed it, sanded, prepped and cleaned, caulked right around the perimeter to close the joint against both water and air, and repainted in a colour matched to a sample taken from the existing window.

They came back close to brand new. One set-up, one access cost, one visit — and a whole elevation of windows that now shed water and hold heat instead of leaking both.

Tested Before the Scaffold Came Down

The repair was run with a hose and worked deliberately — not a quick pass, which almost anything will survive. It came up dry. It has since been through real rainfall with no recurrence. Testing while the access is still standing is standard on our work, because the alternative is the homeowner discovering the problem in February.

Then the site was cleaned out — scaffold down, every bag of stripped shingle and rotted timber off the property, nothing left in the garden for the homeowner to deal with. The workmanship carries a 2-year warranty, and the homeowner has since said so publicly.