Hi, this is Steve from Roofer 911.
I'm on top of a roof in Alexandria, Virginia and they have a leak that's settled down at the lowest point. I wanted to do an infrared scan inside the garage, but there's no isolation. The minute I turn the camera on, I'm going to see nothing but cold air, so it's going to throw my scan off completely.
But, I noticed quite a few things that's wrong with this roof that's causing the leak.
First thing I noticed is when they did the roofing next to the flat roof, they nailed the first course too low and you can see here, there's even a nail that's pulling out, so when a heavy rain or a melting snow falls, the water can get underneath this first course of shingles. Wherever the water finds a nail, that's where it will it down and the water will continue to travel and settle at the lowest point.
What we're going to do is take off this flat roof material, we're going to install an EPDM and we're going to bring it up high about maybe 2 feet up. Then when we nail the shingles into place, we're going to nail a little bit high as well. Now another thing is the ridge bent directly above this valley is installed incorrectly. They never nailed into the rafters. You can see it's on the verge of coming off. Again, when a heavy rain or melting snow, that water can get underneath the ridge vent.
Many times the water will drop straight down through the open breather, but also when the water reaches the level the shingles where they're cut, the water can curl over the shingles, travel down underneath the shingles and then settle again at the valley.
Now, also this skylight was done wrong too. When they fastened the shingles into place, to the sides and also the backside the skylight, they put nails into the flashing's, so this will leak with a heavy rain.
Now, also you have patchings of ridge that leads down to the flat and that can also cause the leak down at the bottom and I'll show you why. Okay, let me see, is there a hole. I lifted the shingle up and I noticed there's a nail. Yeah, there it is right there. They put nails right through the cap shingles, right at the seam here, so the water can get underneath here and seep right through the nail and then just leak down at the lowest point.
This course of shingles here should have overlapped the ridge. Then you can nail ... well, I wouldn't nail it. To be perfectly honest with you, instead of nailing this, I would cement underneath it and press it right into the ceiling.
The valley here, I checked the valley. This was done perfectly. There's no problem there, but also being that there's a problem with the other ridge vent, we're going to take this one off too and we're going to seal underneath it with polyurethane. Then when we fasten it into place, we need to make sure that we hit the rafters underneath. Then we're going to reseal all the fasteners.
That's it. What a shame, this homeowner is selling the house. Today's the first day it went on the market and they developed a leak.
Again, my name is Steve from Roofer 911. We specialize in roof repair and all areas in Alexandria, Centreville, and Northern Virginia. I can be reached at 703-475-2446.
Also, we're going to take care of where the roof and the wall meet here as well. Thank you.
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