Roof Leak Repair in St. Louis, Traced Not Patched

The most expensive roof repair is the second one

Which is why the first one has to be aimed at the right place. When you ring, describe the water and nothing else: the room, the wall, how high the stain sits, and whether it comes with wind or with volume. That is where the search starts, and it is worth being precise about, because it is also where most leak repairs in this metro go wrong.

Almost every homeowner describes a leak the same way, and the description is always accurate and almost always misleading: there is a brown ring on the ceiling in the back bedroom, and it grows when it rains hard from the south. What that sentence tells a roofer is where the water finished. It says very little about where the water started.

Asphalt shingles are not a waterproof membrane. They are a shedding surface, a set of overlapping tabs designed to move water down the slope faster than gravity can push it sideways. Under them is the underlayment, and under that is the deck, which on a great many older St. Louis houses is not plywood at all but wide sawn planks laid with a deliberate gap between them. When water gets past the shedding surface, it does not fall straight through the deck. It runs. It follows the felt to a lap, it follows a plank seam across the slope, it finds a rafter and runs down the side of it, and it keeps going until it hits a horizontal member, a bit of insulation, a wiring run or a light box that finally stops it and lets it soak downwards.

That travel is usually a few feet. It is frequently ten or twelve. On a low slope it can be the width of a room. So a repair aimed at the ceiling stain is a repair aimed at a spot on the roof that, in a great many cases, was never leaking at all. The sealant goes on, the invoice gets paid, the next storm arrives from the same direction, and the stain grows.

What happens between your call and the file in your hand

1. FirstA conversation about the water, not the roof Where is it showing, which room, which wall, how high up, does it come with wind or with volume, is it only in a long soaking rain or in any shower at all. Those answers narrow the search before anyone gets a ladder off the truck.
2. SecondInside and up, before outside and up Where an attic can be entered, the underside of the deck is looked at first, because water leaves a track on wood and insulation that survives long after the ceiling has dried.
3. ThirdThe suspect details, in order of likelihood Uphill of the stain and to either side. Boots, flashings, valleys, fasteners, then anything that has been sealed before, because a previous repair is itself a strong clue.
4. FourthPhotographs and a written scope What was found, where, and what it will take to correct, in writing, with pictures of the actual roof rather than a catalogue. Yours to keep and yours to compare against.
5. ThenYour decision, on paper Repair, or repair now and plan a replacement, or replace. All three are legitimate answers and which one is right depends on the roof, not on the call.

Where roofs actually leak in the St. Louis metro

Almost never in the middle of a shingle field. Roofs here fail at their details: at the places where something passes through the roof, meets a wall, or changes direction. Each of the six below has its own page on this site, because each one has a different failure mode, a different way of being found and a different honest answer about whether it is worth repairing.

Why roofs here fail at their details rather than their surfaces

Missouri gives a roof two opposite loads inside a single year, and they work on the same parts. In winter, moisture in the deck and around a fastener freezes and expands, then thaws, then freezes again, and each cycle walks the fastener a fraction of a turn back out of the wood. In July, the surface of a dark roof deck in this humidity runs far hotter than the air, the deck dries, the sheathing moves, and every rubber and mastic component on the roof, the boots especially, gets cooked and loses its elasticity.

So the field of the roof, which is just overlapping asphalt doing an easy job, ages slowly and predictably. The details, which are the parts made of rubber, metal, sealant and fastenings, get worked hard in both directions. That is the reason a roof in this metro will typically leak years before it needs replacing, and the reason a leak is not automatically an argument for a new roof.

What you are holding at the end of it

Photographs of your own roof, taken from on it. Measurements. A written scope naming the fault, where it is, and what correcting it involves. You keep all three whether or not you hire anybody, and it is the document you put next to the next quote somebody hands you at your front door.

Keys does roofing, gutters and downspouts. Not siding, not windows, not commercial work. The shingles installed are Atlas and Malarkey. If a leak turns out to be a plumbing vent that has come apart inside the wall, or condensation from an unvented bathroom fan dripping onto the back of the ceiling, you get told that on the day, and a roofer is not the trade you need.

On insurance, the file is the whole point. RSMo 407.725 bars a roofing contractor from representing or negotiating on a property owner's insurance claim, so what Keys brings instead is photographs, measurements, a written scope in your hand, and attendance on site as the contractor when an adjuster comes out. A leak from ordinary wear is usually not a claim at all, which is covered on a leak and your insurance.

Common questions

The eleven pages on this site