Roof Repair in Burlington County, New Jersey

Finding where the water is actually getting in

Water rarely enters where it appears. It travels along the underside of decking, follows a rafter, runs down a truss chord and drops onto ceiling drywall several feet from the breach. That is why a repair starts with tracing rather than patching: the visible stain is evidence, not a location.

A useful diagnosis works from both sides. Above the roof line, the search is for a failed termination — a lifted shingle tab, a separated flashing leg, a split vent boot, a nail that has backed out and lifted the course above it. Underneath, in the attic or the ceiling cavity, the search is for the highest point of moisture, because water only travels downhill.

• Staining patterns that indicate the entry point is uphill of the damage
• Fastener corrosion and nail pops that break the shingle seal
• Sheathing discolouration, delamination or soft spots underfoot
• Insulation that is compacted or stained where water has passed

Flashing: where most roofs actually leak

Flashing is the metal that carries water across the joints a roof cannot shingle over — where the roof meets a wall, a chimney, a dormer cheek or a skylight curb. It does more work than any other component and is the most common source of a persistent leak.

Failures are usually mundane. Step flashing gets nailed through its face instead of being woven course by course. Counter-flashing works loose from a mortar joint. Someone seals a chimney with roofing cement, the cement dries, cracks and then holds water against the masonry instead of shedding it. Sealant is a finishing detail on a correctly built flashing, never a substitute for one.

• Step flashing at sidewalls and dormer cheeks
• Chimney base, step and counter-flashing, and cricket condition where one exists
• Skylight curb flashing and the head flashing above it
• Apron and headwall flashing where a roof plane meets vertical siding

Roof valleys and penetrations

A valley concentrates the runoff of two roof planes into one channel. On a large Burlington County colonial with several gables, a single valley can carry the drainage of half the roof, which is why valleys wear faster than the field and why debris caught in one causes trouble so quickly.

Penetrations are the other concentration of risk. Plumbing vent boots have a rubber collar that hardens and splits, typically well before the shingles around them are worn out — a split collar is one of the most common causes of a leak on an otherwise healthy roof. Bathroom and kitchen exhaust terminations, attic vents, satellite mounts and old antenna anchors all deserve the same attention.

• Open, closed-cut and woven valleys, and the wear each one shows
• Plumbing vent boot collars — the most common single-point failure
• Exhaust terminations that discharge into the attic instead of outdoors
• Abandoned mounts and fastener holes left from removed equipment

Wind damage and missing shingles

Asphalt shingles rely on a strip of factory adhesive that bonds each course to the one below. Once that seal breaks — from age, from a cold installation that never fully bonded, or from a gust that lifted the tab — the shingle is a flap rather than a seal, and the next storm will find it.

Damage often shows up first along rakes, ridges and the windward edge of the roof, where uplift is highest. A repair that only replaces the shingles that blew away, without re-sealing the compromised tabs around them, tends to be followed by another call after the next front comes through.

Decking, and when a repair becomes a replacement

Once the shingles come off a repair area, the decking underneath tells you how long the leak has been running. Plywood that has been wet repeatedly delaminates; older plank sheathing rots at the fastener line and along joints. Neither will hold a nail properly, and a shingle fastened into soft decking is a future failure.

This is also the point where an honest answer matters. If the field of the roof is brittle, the granule loss is general rather than local, the seals have failed broadly and there are repairs on top of repairs, another patch buys a season at best. Getting that judgement right — repair, or replace — is the most valuable part of the visit.