Fixing a hole where the rain comes in...

grizzly

Hi,

Seeing as how a picture is worth a 1000 words I'll post a few shots of the problem.

Water is coming in around the light fitting shown in the first pic. It only happens during very heavy rain (which we are getting alot of in Ireland for the last two months).

I am renting and the landlady has been very good, getting the original builders out promptly to fix when it first happened. But they are clueless as to what the issue causing it is. They got a guy to put down sealant around the exposed edges – not fixing the problem.

The drain (2) is at the edge of the roof. I've cleared a path of the stones (which I guess are just cosmetic) to hopefully get better drainage to the drain.

The builder thought the problem was the when the wind is blowing a certain direction, the water would blow up under the slates (3).

Does anyone have any thoughts? I hear flat roofs are bad for leaks (this roof is part of an extension built 3 years ago – main part of house is inverted v shape. The roof is not completely flat – unfortunately instead of a gradual gradient from all farthest points towards the drain hole, there are pockets of indented areas were the rain pools.).

Thanks.

grizzly

.

gsxr1

the only way you are going to find the leak is to cut a hole in the ceiling. you could be guessing for months trying to find it from above.

water travels between plasterboard and joist . it could be 10 m away from the stain.

ART6

Flat roofs lined with roofing felt are indeed a pain in the a**e and are always prone to leaks when the felt cracks as it always does. The gravel is there to keep the sun off the felt and in theory stop it from cracking, but it rarely does. The quick and more permanent fix is to buy a roll of LDPE membrane from B&Q or Visqueen from a builder's supplier, sweep off all the gravel, and fix the membrane down over the felt. Then put back the gravel to keep the membrane down. Use bitumen mastic to stick the membrane to the upright areas.

As the previous poster says, the water could be getting in from 10 metres away, and cutting a hole in the ceiling won't necessarily find it.

muggyog

Hole in the ceiling is already there! Just pop out the light fitting and look in with a torch. This will at least tell you the direction the water is coming from. Water leaks are difficult to trace so you should do your faultfinding when it rains again ( Next five minutes!).

muggyog

Looked at your photos again and I think the builder may have a point but not in the way he thinks. If I am reading the geography correctly, the slate roof is over the area of the water stain. I cant make out from the photo but if I were you I would investigate the area where the slate roof meets the felt roof. Rain does not blow back up slate roofs but it can blow back in at flashing areas (top or bottom).

grizzly

muggyog wrote: »

Looked at your photos again and I think the builder may have a point but not in the way he thinks. If I am reading the geography correctly, the slate roof is over the area of the water stain. I cant make out from the photo but if I were you I would investigate the area where the slate roof meets the felt roof. Rain does not blow back up slate roofs but it can blow back in at flashing areas (top or bottom).

Yes, you're right the stain is right below the slate section. I've have a poke about there and see when it's light tomorrow. Thanks for all the help.