water leak on roof

[MintabiePete]

This is slowly driving me bonkers .

Not too sure what advice anyone can give me in this area , but I have had a leak on the rear portion of my roof and no matter
what I try , I cant seem to get on top of it .

The roof in question is a sloping from the main part of my roof almost flat , but a bit of a slant to run into the guttering . The area
that I am having trouble is about a 50 foot x 50 foot area that is covered by galvanised iron sheeting . I have had this leak for a
while and every time it rains a decent rain it will leak at one spot . We dont get much rain here in my part of Australia and at the
moment we are in a draught , but the other day we got close to an inch of rain, and it leaked .

I have gone up on the roof , used silastic to seal the joints , just in case it might be blowing in , but it still leaks . At one stage
I thought it may be coming in from higher up , but I dont think so . as would have thought the beams that the ceiling is attached to
would have stopped it .

This has developed into a really major project , and maybe I shouldnt even be posting something like this , but hopefully one of you
experts on roofing may be able to give me some tips

As I said sitting up on the roof and looking around , I would have thought with the amount of silastic I have on it there would be no
way it would leak , but it does , I have even gone up on the roof in the night to see if any light is shining through , but nothing .

Hopefully someone may have some tips on roofing that I am not aware of , before my wife divorces me

BTW The rain in this part of Oz , we sometimes get a couple of inches in an hour ., and it has problems running away , but I am not
sure if that is my problem or not .

Thanks

Peter

 

[noseall]

g'day MinitabePete,

do you think it may be leaking in through some of the sheet fixings?

 

[masona]

Can you do a photo?

 

[MintabiePete]

Well this is the best I can do , not too sure about the size of the photo , but I will try and edit it after Its leaking from what
seems to be the right hand side of this 1st photo and I cannot for the life of me see how , I will try and post more photos so
you can see the layout of the roof . All the brown marks is the silastic I have put on the joints of the galvanized sheets. In the
2nd photo it leaks about 3 foot down past that vent pipe . That 1st photo is a continuation on of the 2nd one

 

[masona]

If the sheets is only overlapping by one instead of two then it could be the wind blowing the rain into it.

I has a similar poblem and the only way I could find the leak was to use a garden hose and do a section
at a time on the roof with someone underneath to keep an eye on it.

 

[MintabiePete]

When I had a look they seem to be lapped over by about 3 flutes , anyway anywhere they overlap I have silasticed to stop that happening . We are in a draught here so unfortunately dont think I can get up on the roof using a hose . Tomorrow early in the morning I am going up on the roof and reallly check out the area it is leaking and see if there are any pin holes in the tin or where I silasticed that I may have missed .

Actually it doesnt rain very much here , our average rainfall is only about 8 or 9 inches for the whole year , and with this draught we might not get any rain for 6 months or longer

Unfortunately anyone standing under wouldnt see anything unless I removed the ceiling , and that looks a big job . The reason I knew it was leaking was it was dripping through the ceiling , so I hurried it up and drilled a small hole to let it out , otherwise it was warping the ceiling .

 

[noseall]

it must be a heck of a racket when you get hail stones.

 

[Mw Roofline]

Actually it doesnt rain very much here , our average rainfall is only about 8 or 9 inches for the whole year ....

Here in Birmingham its peeing it down, think we had 8 inches in just an afternoon, lol


If the roof is overlapped by 3 laps then it must be getting in through the screw holes. Rather than just blob sealant over the screw heads get yourself some kind of sticky flashing and cut it into squares and cover the whole screw head and around it.

Good luck!

 

[MintabiePete]

it must be a heck of a racket when you get hail stones. icon_eek.gif

What are they

Well I am going back up on the roof this morning , will have another look , but I am sure I have not missed anything , but will spent a lot of time REALLY looking for any anomalies

 

[MintabiePete]

I mentioned that we dont get much rain here , well we got a great New Years Present . Just before dawn we got a storm come in that lasted a bit over an hour , and we got 78mm, over 4 inches in our old scale , and did my roof leak . Not too sure what I can do with this apart from perhaps investing in a new roof , which I dont think will be cheap But at least it should fix up my problem , and we did get a few hailstones

And also I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year 2007

 

[JohnD]

It looks relatively flat. In heavy rain you will get a bit of standing water when it falls faster than it runs away. It will try to get in through the overlaps.

Looks to me rusty round the fixing screws.

Have you got any fixing holes in the troughs or are they all on the peaks?

We don't have iron roofs much in the UK. You need an Oz forum. I might ask my bro-in-law who has a nest of iron on his multi-extended house as below...

You think you've got problems?

Portland Victoria, see http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pcottage/

 

[masona]

You think you've got problems?

Bet it don't leak though

 

[MintabiePete]

Looks to me rusty round the fixing screws.

No , as I mentioned previously , the brown stains is actually silastic

There is no rust in the roof at all , but after the big rain we had on New Years morning , I have come to the conclusion that it must be blowing in , so I am going to spend some more time using silastic and really make it watertight where the sheets lap into each other , and then see what happens

Might be months before we get any more rain

[code:1]You think you've got problems? [/code:1]

Yeah , it must be a miracle it doesnt leak eh!