Roof Leak Repair

A stain on the ceiling tells you water got in. It almost never tells you where. Water runs along rafters, down the back of decking and along the top of insulation before it finds a place to drip, so the entry point is usually several feet uphill of the mark on the ceiling, and sometimes on a different slope altogether.

On a north Houston roof the usual culprits, in rough order, are a cracked rubber boot around a plumbing vent, flashing that has pulled away from a chimney or a wall, a nail that has backed out and lifted a shingle, and shingles that have lost their seal and let wind-driven rain under them. None of those is a big job on its own. All of them get expensive when they are left through a wet spring, because the decking underneath goes soft and the repair turns into a section of roof instead of a patch.

A proper leak repair starts on the roof, not in the attic: the contractor traces the water back to where it enters, fixes that, and checks whether the decking around it is still sound. If you are seeing a stain, bubbling paint or a damp patch after rain, that is the moment to get it looked at, before the next storm turns a boot into a ceiling.

Whatever the problem turns out to be, the first step is the same: describe it, say where the house is, and one independent roofing contractor working in your town contacts you to look at it. No charge for being connected, and no obligation once he has.