Repair A Leaking Roof

[meatboy]

having a leak in our roof for over 2months the builders said when it rains again they will come and repair it,as it rained all night/morn.we phoned the forman and told him it is still dripping and there is a water mark on the bedroom ceiling can you come and fix it.this is his reply because it is raining all the workmen have gone home so i have no one,the wife asked him to come himself and have a look up in the loft no can do stuck in the office,but here comes the i can fix it surgestion i think it will be better if we take the bedroom ceiling down,i heard the wife laugh and told him i dont think my hubby would agree to that,can anyone agree with him.

[spud1]

The mere fact that he suggested removing the ceiling to repair the roof should warn you that you need to find someone who knows what their doing.

[johnnyk]

Keaks are best stopped from outside. Wait till evening then have someone shine a VERY bright light (like a halogen construction lamp)up into the attic. Get up on the roof with some silicone or epoxy and patch where you see the light. It might take a couple of sessions but it will work.

[meatboy]

The mere fact that he suggested removing the ceiling to repair the roof should warn you that you need to find someone who knows what their doing.

thanks spud for that,but this chap is the forman of a building team that are very busy,i think he must be suffering from stress and got the roof and ceiling mixed up,because its a big house nobody wants to go up on the roof,what makes it dificult to pin point the leak is the foil they put under the tiles,they then have to guess where the leak is,oh well its dry at the moment so lets see if anyone turns up.

[meatboy]

forgot to mention he is the forman of the team that built the house.

[noise]

This sounds like a recurring problem we had with our tile roof.

When we complained to the builder, he had to arrange for the roofing contractor to come. The contractor was busy on other houses, so it was not a quick process.

When it is raining, even just a little, they can not go up on the roof as it is too slippery. They would come when it was dry and safe to go up.

Every single time, they found obviously cracked tiles. At first we thought it was the result from workers stepping on them. Turned out that they were just cracking from expansion and contraction.

After about 5 of these sessions, enough time had passed that the contractor found out that the manufacture had a quality control problem with this lot of tiles and recalled/replaced them all.

You may not have a quality problem, but I would guess your leaks are caused by cracked tiles.

Edited to add that the builder later had someone come in and fix/repaint the water spots in the ceiling under the house warranty.

Edited August 2, 2011 by noise

[meatboy]

the neighbours op.us has a problem as well[diff team] i can see small lumps of concrete on their roof,and have found the same in our garden,as they dont use a locking device they must be useing concrete to stableize the tiles,then with the movement on the roof with the heat it is causing the concrete to crack and fall away thus leaving a gap,

[Xonax]

The mere fact that he suggested removing the ceiling to repair the roof should warn you that you need to find someone who knows what their doing.

Is that really possible in Thailand? Please advise how to find such people here!

[kandahar]

Dude, you need to go, or have someone who can go, into the attic when the roof is leaking and see where it is coming in. If you're going to wait for them to fix it, fine but you need to know what is leaking so if they come, tear the place apart and fix the watermarks on the ceiling, you won't have to call them back when you find that they patched what they thought was the leak.

[johnnyk]

I had a few leaks up in the attic and could see light coming through from outside but the guy and his helpers could not figure out how to find them from out on the roof. I sent him up on the roof and poked drinking straws through the holes/cracks.

He was totally blown away by this display of western genius!

[meatboy]

Dude, you need to go, or have someone who can go, into the attic when the roof is leaking and see where it is coming in. If you're going to wait for them to fix it, fine but you need to know what is leaking so if they come, tear the place apart and fix the watermarks on the ceiling, you won't have to call them back when you find that they patched what they thought was the leak.

dude if you have foil under the roof which our house has how can you tell where the leakes are?yesterday we had a storm in the aft.and the wind was blowing the rain towards the tiles so it seems to me when the rain and the wind is strong enough water is seeping under the tiles,dont have a problem if the rain is torrential,the water is then running down the foil on to the steel supports then onto the bedroom ceiling.if you look at roofs that has concrete tiles you will see plenty of gaps where the overlapping is bad.thanks for any suggestions.

[kandahar]

Dude, you need to go, or have someone who can go, into the attic when the roof is leaking and see where it is coming in. If you're going to wait for them to fix it, fine but you need to know what is leaking so if they come, tear the place apart and fix the watermarks on the ceiling, you won't have to call them back when you find that they patched what they thought was the leak.

dude if you have foil under the roof which our house has how can you tell where the leakes are?yesterday we had a storm in the aft.and the wind was blowing the rain towards the tiles so it seems to me when the rain and the wind is strong enough water is seeping under the tiles,dont have a problem if the rain is torrential,the water is then running down the foil on to the steel supports then onto the bedroom ceiling.if you look at roofs that has concrete tiles you will see plenty of gaps where the overlapping is bad.thanks for any suggestions.

Dude, that sucks. I don't have too many suggestions if the underside of your roof is covered with foil / insulation. That is a big job for someone to peel it off and start trying to seal the whole thing. I hope you get some satisfaction from the builder.

I recently put a roof on a building here. I left some small spaces at the peak cap for hot air to exit from and worried that rain would blow in during a bad storm. It has a pretty good pitch so it would take a really bad storm to push the water uphill and into the peak. I held off on installing the soffits because that would be the access into the attic if I had to add additional material to seal those outlets. After several months and several really bad wind / rainstorms, I determined that the pitch was sufficient to keep the water at bay and we installed the soffits and sealed the attic. Two days later we had another storm and bad leaks at the peak. Off with a soffit section and into the attic to add the water barrier material to the thing. Sucks to be me, sometimes.

I wish you good luck with your problem.

[meatboy]

thanks for that kanda.looking back over the last 2years the leaks we have had are when there has been a bad storm,with the strong winds blowing from the south,as our house is on a big plot we get no protection from the next house.i am starting to think they [builders] last time might have ripped the foil to look for the leak,i have a gut feeling they might ask can they hang some buckets on the girders

[thaibeachlovers]

You don't say what sort of roof you have. Tile, metal, corrugated fiber sheet?

If you can go up into the roof space during a storm, mark the leaks.

At my MIL's house the roof is corrugated fiber sheet and leaks around some of the screws during storms. Luckily for me there is no ceiling or lining, so marked leaks and will be squirting some GP silicone around them next dry spell ( from underneath ).

[meatboy]

You don't say what sort of roof you have. Tile, metal, corrugated fiber sheet?

If you can go up into the roof space during a storm, mark the leaks.

At my MIL's house the roof is corrugated fiber sheet and leaks around some of the screws during storms. Luckily for me there is no ceiling or lining, so marked leaks and will be squirting some GP silicone around them next dry spell ( from underneath ).

the roof is concrete tiles which has channels on the top so they lock over each tile,unless they are perfectly straight when laying gaps will appear and water can seap through,you cant go into the roof space because of the foil they line under the tiles to reflect the heat upwards,so the only solution is to try and seal any gaps from the outside,whoever goes up there will have to have nerves of steel.

[thaibeachlovers]

You don't say what sort of roof you have. Tile, metal, corrugated fiber sheet?

If you can go up into the roof space during a storm, mark the leaks.

At my MIL's house the roof is corrugated fiber sheet and leaks around some of the screws during storms. Luckily for me there is no ceiling or lining, so marked leaks and will be squirting some GP silicone around them next dry spell ( from underneath ).

the roof is concrete tiles which has channels on the top so they lock over each tile,unless they are perfectly straight when laying gaps will appear and water can seap through,you cant go into the roof space because of the foil they line under the tiles to reflect the heat upwards,so the only solution is to try and seal any gaps from the outside,whoever goes up there will have to have nerves of steel.

Ouch!

Good luck with that.

[haveaniceday]

I was involved with a house in oz recently that had tiles, and the roof was sprayed with paint, this paint was a kind of rubbery paint, also makes it very difficult to remove a tile to get in. There were no leaks to start with though, it was done for cosmetic reasons and to help avoid problems int he future. I cant say it would be a "cheap" fix though. Unfortuanlty sounds like someone did a really shitty job on your roof.

Really is a job for someone who really knows their stuff in my opinion.

[ThaiLife]

The roof on my house has recently started to leak, and as I sit here typing this its raining out side and I can hear the tap tap tap of water falling onto the celling from several leaks . Ive been up into the loft and it looks like the leaks are in an area of the loft that has no direct access due to tight angled metal work that's been added after the construction to add extra strength ,I can see the water dripping down onto the ceiling, but no way can I get to them , the only solution seems to repair the leaks from out side . I was wondering if its possible to seal the leaks with a sealer paint as described in post #17 . Any one know if this type of sealer roof paint is available ?

Thanks :jap:

[meatboy]

it seems the problem we have is when the wind is blowing gale force it is driving the rain up under the concrete tiles,with all the storms we have had the past few weeks the wind has not blown from the right side therefore we have not had any leak since i posted the problem.