Young House Love

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How To Fix A Leaky Roof Yourself

Last week was shaping up to be pretty good week. Sherry celebrated turning 30. We declared the kitchen done(-ish). Spring was in such full bloom it was practically summer. In fact, we even got a pretty awesome thunderstorm one night. Seriously it rained buckets. Faster and harder than we had ever seen since moving into our new house. And then around midnight, it happened…

Leak 2 Drip On Beam

We were watching some TV when we heard a sudden, loud rushing sound. Like someone dumped a gallon of milk on the floor in the kitchen. Our first instinct was that the new-ish-ly installed dishwasher was leaking, so we both dashed towards the kitchen – only to stop in our tracks when a stream of water hit us from above before even entering the kitchen. It was coming from one of the beams in the living room. And then we noticed a pretty steady stream coming out of a nearby wall too. Crap.

Leak 3 Crying Wall

It all happened so fast. We scrambled to grab a bucket to catch the water streaming out of the beam and stuffed a big ol’ towel at the base of the wall that was dripping. Since it was still pouring outside (with a fair amount of thunder and lightning), our only plan of attack was to go into the attic to see what was up (since going outside with a big metal flashlight or ladder sounded like a really bad idea). So I crawled up into the attic with a flashlight and my iPhone (so I could document the damage for Sherry by snapping a picture) while Sherry stood in the living room and tapped on the beam so I could orient myself in the attic and follow the sound. Sure enough, I found a general area where water seemed to be seeping into the house. Did I say “crap” already? If so, here it is again. Crap. It was so bad that Sherry came up into the attic with me and we both just sort of crouched there staring at it.

Leak 4 Attick Wet

The area was too narrow for me or Sherry to get into (there’s no flooring in that area) and since things were starting to dry up outside (thank goodness!), we decided to call it a night. At this point it was around 1:30 in the morning, and we figured that in the am the roof would hopefully be dry enough for us to get up there and see what was going on (you know, without getting hit by lightning). The stream from the wall had stopped and we left a bucket out to catch anything else that decided to drip from the beam – but that had pretty much stopped too since the storm had finally passed.

Leak 5 Bucket

As if this weren’t bad enough on its own, it had now gotten too late to finish our DVR-ed episode of Dancing With The Stars. Tragic, we know. Watching Urkel strut his stuff would just have to wait.

Leak 1 DWTS On TV

The next day was sunny and hot, so we figured the roof would have dried by the time Clara was down for her nap that afternoon, which was the first moment of the day that we both could tackle the roof thing together. First we headed back into the attic to see if the spot had dried up. Yup, it mostly had.

Leak 6 Attic Dry Check

Next I went up on top of the house to try to identify whatever was causing our leak while Sherry “Afraid Of Heights” Petersik watched from the ladder. I sort of half hoped for / half feared finding a big gaping hole. At least then I would know what needed fixing. Oh and it bears mentioning that this roof (a 30-year asphalt shingle one) was installed the spring before the previous owners sold us this house, so it’s only a few years old.

Leak 8 Roof

And yes, we do have quite the smorgasbord of rooflines. In case you’re totally disoriented, here’s roughly how this lines up with the floor plan below (note the chimney, which connects to our fireplace which is between the kitchen and living room – that’s usually what I use to orient myself).

Leak 8 Roof With Labels

When I headed to the area above the leak, it was pretty obvious that I was looking at the culprit. Not a big hole, just a big ol’ pile of leaves.

Leak 9 Leaves On Roof

I try to keep the roof pretty clear of sticks and leaves, but I guess this pile had collected since I was last on the roof in the fall. And since it’s completely invisible from the ground, I had no clue this troublemaker was lurking up here. So after a few sweeps of the rake, the leaf collection was no more.

Leak 10 Wet Spot From Leave

How does a pile of leaves cause a leak? It wasn’t so obvious to me at first, but having googled “find source of leaky roof” a bit the night before, I had a better idea. Shingles are overlapped in a way to allow rain to flow down over them. But when water flows up them, or rather builds up around them (like if there’s a leaf dam preventing water from moving off the roof quickly enough), it can seep under them and find its way into nail holes or other less waterproof surfaces. And you can see from the wet mark above just how high the water had built up. It must have finally found a way in, and swoosh, down it came, into the attic and the living room below.

Leak 11 Lifting Shingle

I couldn’t be 100% sure that clearing the leaves would solve our problem, but I was pretty darn hopeful. Hopeful enough that I was even able to enjoy being on a roof a bit. Why yes I did tell Sherry to go into the sunroom and look up at one point. Skylights = a rip roaring good time.

Leak 12 John In Skylight

We got to test our repair theory when we got a lot of rain over the course of a few storms that came through Richmond in the last week since the leak. It rained for hours on more than one occasion. And we were actually happy about it for once since it meant that we could test Operation Leaf Removal to make sure we had truly solved the issue.

Leak 13 Raining Again

After we survived about 5 hours of rain in the first of two storms, we decided it was time to check the attic to see if perhaps the water just hadn’t made its way into our living room yet (but was stealthily building up in the attic or something). Thankfully the attic looked totally dry. Victory!

Leak 14 Dry In Attic

And we had the same luck with the second big rainstorm (once again we checked the attic, and it was nice and dry). So for the time being, we’re considering the problem officially solved – and thanking our lucky stars that the leak didn’t ruin anything in our house, and didn’t cost anything to fix. And now we’ve learned our lesson about letting so many months go buy without checking the roof for leaf build up since there are some spots that we can’t see from the ground – and apparently leaves can be sneaky little buggers. We’re mainly just beyond grateful that the leak didn’t happen while we were in Hawaii. We can’t imagine coming home to a living room full of water.

Who else has a leaky roof story to tell? Was yours easy fix? Did it do more damage? Did you catch it just in time? Did you think your dishwasher was leaking at first? Any tips to pass around to the group about preventing, finding, or fixing leaks would be much appreciated – especially since we felt so inexperienced and unprepared this time around!

Comments

  1. Amy Knisely says

    Wow, I was reading that and really hoping that you didn’t have to replace parts of your roof or anything…
    We recently had some roof issues. When my husband and I hired someone to install insulation in our attic in February, the contractor noticed a leak in the roof. When he went up there he noticed all of the shingles were misaligned. Mind you, they weren’t like this when we had the home inspection done in July.
    After calling the insurance company and three different roofing companies for quotes, we found out that the shingles were only 8 years old and the reason they were shifting was because they were installed improperly by a “fly-by-night” contractor that we couldn’t find any contact info for (hired by the person who owned the house prior to our seller).
    Because it was an installation error, the insurance company wouldn’t cover any repairs. Luckily, we found a reputable company that guaranteed their work (materials and labor) that our real estate agent recommended and they were able to get in and fix it when we had some nice weather.

    Reply

  2. Maggie says

    You might also want to check the valley flashing and make sure it’s well sealed, and check attic insulation for any disintegration, musty smell and all that. And watch the wall(s) where water came down, for problems with wiring, insulation, drywall — mold, all that stuff. And the wood floor for water damage. We had foundation flooding last summer after torrential rains, and found cracks in two walls in the basement that allowed water to stream in. One area had carpet that got mildewed (smell is horrible). Different fixes, of course from yours, ours involving hydraulic cement and paint with mildewcide for concrete block walls.

    Hope you got to see Dancing with the Stars later!

    Reply

  3. Becky says

    Sounds like you lucked out!! In our previous home, we lived in a condo that had been converted from a pool room in the basement. Our condo had floors above the pool, and the old pool was crawl space storage. One winter the third floor resident turned his heat off while gone for a week, and the pipes froze and burst, sending water down floor 2, floor 1, garage, and basement (our home!) Holy mess!! Waterfalls into our house! It was seriously unreal. We woke up to the sound of water spittering, and we seriously thought my husband’s cousin who was visiting had gotten up early and was frying bacon. It sounded like sizzling bacon! Not the case, however. It was such a big mess. Couldn’t get ahold of the emergency condo people and the water shut off was in a locked room. Later that day, we had a professional come vacuum the water out from the pool storage space. They found about 225 gallons of water! I was too stunned at the time to cry, and now I just laugh that we though someone was cooking bacon. Ahhh, such is life sometimes! :)

    Reply

  4. Patti says

    So glad you were able to fix it quickly and easily. Last summer, we had a slow leak in the bedroom ceiling. It would only leak when it rained heavily. My husband couldn’t find the source, so on a sunny day he took the garden hose on the roof with his cell phone and called me on mine in the attic. He ran the water over the area he thought the problem was and as soon as I saw the water starting to drip, I let him know. Turns out it was coming from a spot that needed to be re-tarred. He applied some ceiling tar with a brush and after it dried it was fine. Haven’t had a problem since.

    Reply

  5. Julie H. says

    Sorry about the roof, good thing you guys found the problem.
    On another topic, how is the rain barrel doing? Is it full since you
    had a few storms? Thinking about getting rain barrels for my home.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yes, it’s full and we have been using it to start some outside landscaping tasks! More on those next week when we actually finish something and have after pics to post! Haha.

      xo,
      s

  6. Sayward says

    Oh Lord, that would terrify me! It’s so nice to know that everything worked out with a simple, free fix. My first little apartment after college was on the top floor of the sketchiest apartment building I’ve ever seen… it was like the set of a Saw movie and The Shining combined. Looking back, my mom and I have no idea why I wanted to live there or why she let me live there. Anyway, EVERY time it rained, gallons of gross brown water rained down into my tiny living room.

    I’m hunting for my first home right now, which I’ll be owning and living in by myself. I don’t know WHAT I’d do if water started running down the wall. I’m so impressed that you kept your cool and figured it out on your own. You guys could start selling a “Keep calm and check the attic” poster.

    Reply

  7. Amanda says

    Eek! Glad it was a simple fix!
    Our last house had a dormer window in the attic with long, decorative eaves…specifically, this house: http://www.antiquehomestyle.com/plans/sears/1923sears/23sears-hamilton.htm (Cool to own, but that’s another story)
    We found out the hard way that getting asphalt shingles securely up under that eave was nearly impossible – as evidenced by the waterfall into our living room right under it during one fine, upstanding, windy, Midwestern thunderstorm. Rather than allow the living room ceiling to continue getting damaged, we went right to putting the bucket right in the attic to minimize needed interior fixups.
    Ended up having to crawl up on the roof and “wiggle” some tar up under there to try and get a better seal. Thankfully, it worked!

    Reply

  8. Elizabeth says

    I have to say [while I’m not surprised] go YOU guys for a) not immediately having a panic attack b) calling a pro immediately, and c) googling! I would have probably had a meltdown and spent $200 having someone do what you guys did. Thank you for reminding me that I should be a little bit more calm under pressure!

    Reply

  9. Ami @ parsnipsandpears says

    Oh GOOD catch!! I have never experienced a leak myself, but have many friends who have and it can be realllly bad news if not caught fast! Thanks for sharing this leaf tip! I honestly never even would have thought of that, goes to show you should check whats on your roof regularly!

    Reply

  10. Teri says

    I dread roof leaks! So glad you were able to solve it without any expense! When my kids were young, we lived in Alaska and too much snow built up on the roof and it started leaking on Christmas Eve. My daughter was convinced that Rudolf broke the ceiling!

    Reply

  12. Amy @ a new old house says

    Glad to hear it was an easy & cost-free fix!

    Here’s my tip for finding the source of a leak…
    Buy cheap Kool-aid type mix in various bright colors. Mixup a few batches. On the roof, pour 1 color in 1 area & another color in another area. If you pour purple around a chimney flashing & red around a vally, then go into the attic & see purple dripping, you found the area of your leak.
    Tracking it by color allows you to test several areas at the same time.

    Reply

  13. Trisha says

    We were thinking it was going to be time to get a new roof on our house this spring. It’s getting old and we would prefer to get a new one before any damage is done. Lucky for us there was a huge wind/rain/hail storm that ripped off a huge patch of shingles, but didn’t cause any water damage. Our homeowner’s insurance covered the cost of the rood because of weather damage. Ya! I love saving thousands! Glad your issue was a simple fix.

    Reply

  14. Brooke says

    I entirely relate to this experience. Our newly purchased home with 6 month old roof provided us with a water feature one fall day during a downpour. Water was FLOWING down the stone fireplace surround. Roof was still under warranty, so we called the roofer, who turns out is a complete jackwagon and I will be happy to give him a negative review whenever the opportunity presents itself. My hubby ended up resealing all the joints with roofing tar and after many potential fails, it’s held up. Love a handy man and glad you have one yourself!

    Reply

  15. Caitlin says

    We got an ice dam on an inaccessible part of our roof in the winter of 2010 that caused part of our guest bathroom ceiling to collapse…THAT was a fun mess to clean up, but fortunately aside from putting up new drywall, no permanent water damage! And as soon as spring hit, we had the roof repaired so ice wouldn’t build up again.

    Glad your leak was nothing serious!

    Reply

  16. Vanessa says

    Our dishwasher actually was leaking last night. Our basement leaked when we moved in last year. We removed tons of leaves from the window wells, “adjusted grading”, cut off the downspouts and attached 6′ extension pipes to shoot gutter water far from the house. Seems to have worked!

    Reply

  17. Jill says

    Andy was right about running a big fan up there. Insulation and dry wall are like sponges and don’t dry out all that quickly. Even after after one leak you can have mold growing in your attic and walls. Bleack and vinegar will do the trick for surface mold (showers and bathrooms), but not recommended for more absorbent material.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Jill! We have checked on the back of the ceiling drywall and the insulation and it all feel dry and has no odor but we’re definitely keeping an eye on things!

      xo,
      s

  18. Paige @ Little Nostalgia says

    Oh man! I never would have guessed it was leaves! Good thing it wasn’t something much worse. :-)

    I’ve never dealt with a leaky roof, but there have been a lot of flooded basements in my life. When I was 9, we woke up to 4 inches of standing water covering the entire basement floor. A lot of my parents’ stuff from their childhood was ruined, including my dad’s record collection. Then, when I was about 13, we lived in a different house and one of the window wells didn’t have a cover on it. During a big storm, the seal around the edges burst and water gushed into the room like a faucet. Thankfully, it missed the computer. (After that, we moved it upstairs. ha ha.) It’s happened a few other times, but those were the “big” instances.

    Reply

  19. Suzannah says

    When we had our roof replaced in our old home. We went out of town for the weekend while it was happening. When we returned we discovered that the roofers weren’t able to finish the roof before a huge storm came through so they placed heavy duty tarps over the entire back side of our house. Only, due to the unusually big storm, the tarps didn’t hold so it rained right through the un-shingled roof onto all the ceilings of the back side of the house. All of the dry wall in the ceilings had to be replaced (at the expense of the roofers) and some of our belongings and flooring had to be replaced, because it basically poured rain in our house for 3 hours. Our house smelled musty for weeks after.

    Reply

  20. krys72599 says

    I have a leaky roof story to tell you. This past Christmas my mom complained that she had a tiny leak in her kitchen. Handy hubby took a look and said it must be just a tiny leak on an exterior part of the roof that only covers a bumped out cabinet. He climbed up, crawled onto the roof, and promptly fell through the roof to his thigh. So we called 4 roofing companies who offered emergency repairs to come give us estimates on 12/26. Two showed up. One quoted us $16000 because the ENTIRE roof needed to be done. I asked about a senior citizen discount since Mom is one, and they said they could tell me the discount when I committed to the job. NEXT! Sears only does full roof installations, no repairs. The next guy quoted us $11000 and was SO nice we gave him the job; he agreed the entire house needed a roof. It was probably 50 years old, so we weren’t surprised. He started the next day. $4000 ADDITIONAL dollars later – Mom needed all new roof plywood, the tongue-in-groove was 2 and 3 inches separated due to shrinkage/age – she has a beautiful new roof.

    Reply

  21. Laura says

    I have lots of stories. Which one do you want? How ’bout the one where we had just moved in & had a baby in the weekend with record amt of snowfall. Being new to the area, we didn’t know that the snow rake the previous owners left behind, indeed had a very useful purpose.

    The heat from the attic melted the snow on the roof, letting the melted snow water seep in between the walls, unbeknownst to us. Until our daughter informed us of a leak in the living room.

    Imagine us ripping off all the trim and then my poor husband outside in the cold, in the dark, on a ladder after work chipping and trying to melt the remaining snow with a blow torch so it wouldn’t happen again. It even left a puddle all the way down to the basement. Needless to say, we installed roof heat wiring the next fall.

    Glad yours is resolved. Good times :)

    Laura
    cookiecrumbsandsawdust.blogspot.com

    Reply

  23. Aimee in Anchorage says

    I am battling ice dams here in Anchorage! Nothing to do with debris, just warm(er) water flowing over my still freezing overhangs. Looks like you got a leaf dam– much easier to remove than 8″ of solid ice! Such a terrible feeling to have water in your house though. We’ve had over double the average yearly snowfall so lots of people are dealing with mich more snow and meltwater than usual. We only have 3.3 inches to go to break the record and an April snowstorm wouldn’t be unusual!

    Reply

  24. Hannah says

    hi guys~ didnt read through all the comments but from what I can tell no one has suggested this.
    I am contractor that works on forclosed homes, so we have lots of experience with leaking roofs and water damage.

    fortunately there is an easy fix John can do all by himself :) just to be on the safeside, what works really well is roofing tar, it’s cheap, and easy to do.
    He can just apply roofing tar to that area where the leaves were piled up, and this will prevent and protect against any future leakage :)

    Also if the roof is just 2 years old it should still have a warranty from whoever the contractors were that originally installed it for the previous owners, I would give them a call and see whats going on with that.

    Glad all worked out for you though, also bleach and kilz does wonders to stop any mold growth if does sneak it’s way in the that little spot in the attic.

    Reply

  25. Christie says

    Our roof was leaking just today. It was dripping down from a bathroom exhaust fan into our bathroom.

    Easy fix? The landlord thinks temporary fixes are the way to go. But the roofers who patched it said the whole roof needs to be replaced.

    Reply

  26. Heather says

    Oh the terror your story brings back!

    We spent a whole summer gutting the addition on the back of our home. It was long, exhausting, *disgusting* work. We found everything from a colony of ants and a hornets nest in the wall, to a mummified rat in the crawlspace. It was so nice when it was finally done. We were so proud… and not long after, we had water leaking down through our NEW wall. Saddest sound ever. :(

    Long story short, we put a whole new metal roof on our house (apparently it was due!) we’ve added more insulation and proper ventilation (which helps with ice dams) and bought one of those long handled rakes to take snow off with. Even with all this, my heart still stops when I hear dripping water somewhere!

    You’re lucky your leak was such a cheap and easy fix! :)

    Reply

  27. Kirstin says

    Oh man that totally sucks! Glad it wasn’t anything serious! One thing you don’t have to worry about in the A-Z is a pile of leaves on your roof. However we do have haboobs (that’s a real word) that threaten or roofs.
    So I have a leaky roof story. When we bought our house 3 years ago the inspector told us we would need a new roof in 1-2 years. Fun times, WE were freshly married and just bought our first house, totally don’t have new roof monies laying around. Then last October Phoenix experienced a FREAK hail storm…THOUSANDS of homes suffered insane damage, ours was close to $18,000. Thankfully we have rad insurance. So the roof was completely replaced AND we got a brand new A/C unit to boot.

    THEN

    About 4 months after the roof is fixed there is a storm… 3 days later water starts pouring into our entry way. I thought it was weird it took so many days for the leak to appear. I call the roofer and was a touch salty with him, but thankfully not a bitch…as they came out and inspected and the roof was perfect…however they discovered our house at one point had a swamp cooler (not sure if they have those on the east coast) Well someone took it out, and instead of doing things properly and capping/turning off the water source they just crimped a very old soft copper line and left the water running to said crimped line. So over time I guess the water pressure pushed through the crimped line and GUSHED in. Like within 6 hours a 5′ x 8′ section of our ceiling came down!!!

    So ya. Fun times. It actually prompted us to tear out all the gross carpet and put down new laminate floors (I am a pro at a table saw now!) Boo to leaky roofs!

    Reply

  28. Jaslyn says

    Hi John & Sherry,

    So sorry to hear about your leak! …glad you found the trouble spot and all is fixed.

    I noticed a lot of commenters asking/wondering about mold. Below is an EPA link (pdf) to our Guide on Mold, Moisture, and Your Home:
    http://www.epa.gov/mold/pdfs/moldguide.pdf

    The good news is you should be fine since you caught it so quickly (pg 10). Whew!

    I hope you have a dry weekend ahead! :-)

    Reply

  29. Jen says

    That’s really scary, I thought you were building up to tell us the new kitchen flooded.

    Would it be possible to reduce trips to the roof by installing a net over the roof valley in order to catch the leaves? I’m not sure if such a product exists but I am envisioning something like a light chicken wire that would not be seen from the ground but would keep the leaves elevated and thus they could not catch water build up on the roof. Of course you would need to empty the net in the fall but in general you won’t have to worry about checking the roof for leaf piles.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Never heard of anything like that, but I’m sure we could rig something up! The good news is we realized that if we stand far enough back in our yard we can actually see that area and check if there are leaves there, so instead of getting up on the roof all the time we can check in on it from the ground and only get up there when we need to!

      xo,
      s

  30. Kelly says

    Thanks for this post – I would have never known that leaves could cause such a problem!

    We got our roof redone (for free!) this past fall because of hail damaage. Not a day after they finished, water started streaming into our upstairs bathroom through the ceiling. After a few trips back out by the roofers and a refund for damage (since we decided to scrape, sand, and repaint the ceiling ourselves), we finally were able to get into the attic above that area to find that water was leaking into the hose that attached to our vent fan in the bathroom! It was definitely something I had never seen before.

    Reply

  31. Erin says

    This is completely unrelated to this post, but on the show The Talk today they were doing a home decorating segment and a pillow on one of the chairs was made from what I believe is the fabric that your dining room curtains are made from. Cool!

    Reply

  32. Pamela says

    We had a leak in a flat roof that couldn’t be repaired (not for lack of trying) and we had to wait several months to replace that roof. In the meantime, hubby went up through the trap door in the bathroom ceiling and, laying pieces of plywood across the beams, crawled to the leak and put a large dishpan under it. Every time it rained he would crawl up there and put a long piece of plastic tubing in that pan. We would then siphon the water out and into the bathroom sink.

    Reply

  33. Blair says

    I’m glad to hear you just had to clear some leaves away. Does the insulation in the attic dry on its own / is it waterproof? Do you not have to worry about the water wetting the insulation and causing mold?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Scroll back for some chats about mold. Thankfully everything is dry since it was a short one time thing, but we’re still keeping an eye on things just to be sure!

      xo,
      s

  35. Allie says

    Wow, I’m so glad y’all were able to fix it before damage was done. I’ll be sure to check the roof for leaves if we get a leak…

    On a side note, I didn’t know Urkel was on dancing with the stars, now I’ll have to watch that hehe

    Reply

  36. Samantha Howe says

    I was 10 months pregnant (no joke!!) living in our house with NO roof when it decided to torrentially pour down for 2 weeks. At 3am my husband and I were up ladders with buckets trying to tie down the plastic sheeting that was wrapped around the house (that was our temp roof!!). All my pots and pans were used to catch the rain coming through two floors into the living room! I gave birth two days later.

    A year later i’m still missing my turkey roasting pan – I think its in the loft space somewhere but at least I have a roof now! Small blessings :-)

    Reply

  37. Nicki says

    I kept saying “crap” during the whole first part of this post too. So glad it worked out to be an easy fix!! Who knew leaves could be so tricky.

    Reply

  38. Anne says

    that totally blows my mind that a pile of leaves can do that! i am sooooo glad that’s all it was. roof repairs = boo!
    i’ll definitely mention this possibility to my husband, since he, like john is perfectly comfortable traipsing across the roof while old nervous legs (me) stays firmly on the ground, and hollers up to him.

    Reply

  39. Kasey says

    Prior leaky roof owner here. We had a hard rain storm and started to noticed little trails of water coming down from the ceiling. We called out a local roofing company to check it out. We have a metal roof and there were some screws that did not have the rubber washers that were needed when being screwed into the metal, from all the rain it leaked through the holes where the screws were. The worst part? When we had our inspection done the inspector said screws were missing, instead of previous owner putting them in the right way, they just jammed some screws in there and called it a day which = a leaky roof for us. $1300 later and we had an entire patch of roofing replaced and metal put on the *right* way, haven’t had any problems since :)

    Reply

  40. Caitie says

    OH No!!!!! I’m so sorry guys! That is def my least favorite issue to deal with on the house…although I’m sure a fire wouldn’t be too fun either, luckily I’ve never had to deal with that! We had just drywalled our living room in our 112 year old gal and after I had primed I noticed a small crack…I assumed it was just a bad mud job over a seam…alas it was water slowing seaping through our old roof and had pooled up inside the new drywall. :( It was so wet I was able to punch my fist right through it! So a new roof and some new drywall and now we are all dry!(It wasn’t that quick or easy but I had to summarize haha)Hope all goes well guys, I love your blog!!!! :)

    Reply

  41. Susan says

    Yikes! So glad there wasn’t any lasting damage. I never would have thought to check for leaves on the roof.

    In college, my husband and I were settling into bed for the night when it started to rain. We commented on how relaxing the water sounded until we realized the rain sounds were coming from the kitchen, not the outside. Water was pouring out of the cabinets! The neighbor upstairs had started to do her dishes but then decided to go to bed (mid-clean). She left the water on.

    Reply

  42. Lisa says

    We recently had a small leak in our living room ceiling…couldn’t figure out what the sound was and finally realized it was little drops of water hitting the glass lamp shade below!

    Where was it coming from, you ask? Our diaper sprayer one floor up! Turns out the bolt connecting the hose to the bottom of the tank had become juuust loose enough after so many rounds of turning the sprayer on and off that it was dripping slowly. We had a towel on the floor just to be safe (thank goodness), but it had done all it could do. Tightened that bolt up (and will now check it religiously) and we’ve been good to go.

    Soooo happy this didn’t happen while we were out of town!

    Reply

  43. Melissa D says

    We had the same exact thing happen to us last year – pile of leaves caused a leak into the living room. My husband cleaned off the roof and then added some roof adhesive to a few shingles to help fend off any future leaks. Haven’t had another problem so far. Glad to hear yours was an easy fix, too!

    Reply

  44. KarenH. says

    Not a leaky roof; a leaky basement.  More specifically, a leaky basement door.  Combined with a newly installed sump pump in a basement floor that was designed for an old sump pump halfway across the room.

    The problem is many faceted–or at least several faceted.  But long and involved, so if you’re really interested, I’ll explain it on my blog. :)

    I don’t have complete pictures to explain, but will add them to the blog when I get home from work.

    Reply

  45. Casey says

    i live just outside anchorage, where we’ve been creeping up on the highest recorded snowfall in the area. we’ve had an ice dam (about a foot thick, as near as i could tell when i went to take photos), which caused some fairly major damage, unfortunately. the leak started about a week before valentine’s day, and right now we have sections of the walls and ceiling cut out in the master bedroom and bathroom, and in the family room and bathroom directly below them. plus when the crews came in, they found a wasp nest the size of a basketball in the wall between the bedroom and bathroom! x__x we’re finally getting crews in next week to put in new drywall and do the texture and paint.

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  46. Jen F says

    oh, thanks so much for asking….ha! We closed on our house on November 15th (a few years ago, so all is fine now) and it was pretty rainy here in Seattle. On Thanksgiving eve, we were peeling wallpaper off in our dining room and realized that there was a huge bubble forming in the ceiling. Not having any experience, we cut a hole to let the water through, collected it in a bucket, and cleaned up. Later, we talked to parents who suggested a bucket in the attic, where there was obviously a big roof problem. Thankfully, we had negotiated to get money in closing costs to pay for a new roof, since we knew we would need one soon. (Though we weren’t expecting it quite yet!!!) The storms and rain ended up wrecking roofs all over town, but since we’d gotten an estimate just a couple of weeks before, we were at the top of the list to get our work done. The guys worked on our roof while watching the doppler radar and finished about a half hour before another HUGE storm came in. Thankfully, it has been about 5 years and all is well….but I still have leaking water nightmares from time to time.

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  47. Karah @ thespacebetweenblog says

    Thanks so much for the info…I immediately emailed a tenant we have who just complained of a random little leak. Here’s hoping she has a little pile of leaves that can easily be removed. Who woulda thunk it? Here’s to a happy (dry) weekend. :)

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  50. Chris says

    Just had drywall guys here to repair what I thought was a leak in the kitchen…a black moldy stain had slowly appeared on the ceiling without any dripping water. But above the kitchen is my office? Then I remembered while building the house, we walked in one day to find a leak in the same place and the builder said the guys must have left a window open in my office. Supposedly, they fixed it. YUk, a whole year and a half of mold eating through the ceiling!

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