Maintaining a sound roof in your home is literally the most important home repairs. Not only does a sound roof protect you and your family from harsh weather conditions, but it also keeps your belongings dry too. A leaking roof can cause a myriad of serious problems that could lead to costly damages to your house. Infiltrating water on your roof can cause mold, destroy a dry wall, sheathing or even rot the framing. Any signs of wear or damage on your roof call for immediate action, even what would appear as a small roofing problem could accelerate to a costly fix. Prolonging a roofing problem could only propagate to costly damages that could break your bank.
The good news is, not every roofing problem requires professional roofing services. Some minor roof leaks may be easily fixed without the help of costly professional roofers. In this article, we aim to shed light on some of the DIY roof repair ideas that you can easily do yourself at the heart of your home.
How to repair a leaking roof
1. Solution for a small leak
Truth be told, some roof leaks are hard to find. You might detect water in the ceiling but cannot quite pinpoint where the leaking is coming from. The first thing you need to do is, identify the leaking spot, look for shiners, this is nails that have missed the framing member, and this is probably caused if the carpenter nailed the nails on the roof sheathing the shelters. These protruding nails cause the melted frost to drip onto the ceiling causing leaks. The solution is to clip the shiner with a side cutting plier.
2. Solution for fixing shingles
First, check for damage in the roofing material used directly above where you can detect the leak. Then look closely for exposed roofing tracks on the roof, this could probably due to missing or curled shingles near where the leak is coming from. The solution is to straighten out any shingles that could be curled back. Reattach curled shingles on the roof with some generous amount of compound or asphalt roof cement around the exposed shingle edges. However, if the shingles are damaged, (that is they break or crumble with little effort applied) it is best to replace the roof.
3. Solution for damaged shakes
In case you have damaged shakes on your roof, repair them by first, splitting the damaged shakes with a chisel and hammer, remove the pieces by sliding the chisel under the damaged shake then remove the pieces. Using a hacksaw, cut off any nails that are hard to ply out, next, using a fine-toothed saw, cut out a new shake smaller than the old one. Then slide in the new shake into place carefully and hammer it securely with 2 galvanized roofing nails. Lastly, set the nail heads and seal them with caulking compound.
4. Solution for roll roofing
First off, inspect your roofing material for blisters and cracks. If you find any, mend the blisters by generously spreading an amount of roofing cement beneath the loose roofing material then press down. After, on either side of the repaired blister drive galvanized nails through. Finally, cover the top of the roofing material including the nail heads with roofing cement.
A new roof is not always the solution to all roofing problems. The above DIY roofing repair ideas can keep your existing roof sound and problem free for many years to come. Consider looking at the professionals at www.tagroof.com/ for assistance if your DIY efforts cannot rectify the situation.
