How to fix roof leak from the inside: A guide for the DYI home owners

How to fix roof leak from the inside of your home is a gold nugget question for those Do It Yourself(DIY) home owners out there. Well it’s a gold nugget if you find the right answer to this intriguing question. This is why we have set out to answer this house changing question once and for all. But before you can fix a problem, you need to understand what was responsible for the problem in the first place. Therefore, we will go through what might be the reason for your roof leakage.

Why do roof leak

Roof leaks for varieties of reasons, we will carefully consider those reasons and give some suggestions on how you can prevent your roof from leaking in the first place. After giving you robust suggestions on how to prevent rook leak, we will then show you how to fix roof leak from the inside of your home. So this article is not limited to those looking into how to fix roof leak from the inside of their home alone, we have extended the reach to those looking for ways to prevent their roof from leaking too.

Poorly Constructed Roof

Just as we have said above, your roof can leak due to many factors, if you fail to do a good diligent on your roofing contractor before you hire him, you stand a chance of having your electronics damaged due to leaky roof. Poorly constructed roof go way before ordinary leaks, it could be detrimental and life threatening to house occupants. Therefore it is imperative that you look deeply into the contractor’s past works and perhaps ring one of his clients to take reference from them before proceeding with the construction. At the end of the day, you will spend less on phone calls to take reference than you would when your roof begin to leak.

Poorly Maintained Roof

Looking after your roof could save you lots of money down the track. Simple management techniques such as periodic maintenance could help improve the life of your roof. You could simply schedule regular roof pressure cleaning to help prevent moths from causing degradation on your tile roof for example. Also you could schedule regular gutter cleaning to keep your gutters clear of leaf debris and other unwanted guests that lock around gutters. Debris can bring more than just roof leak damage to your roofing system, having leaf debris and other types of debris on your gutter can breed snakes and sometimes lead to fire hazards. In order to avoid this type of detrimental effect on your home, you need to have a plan on how to keep your roof in good shape and give it a good longevity.

Even though we would advice home owners to call on the professionals to get their debris out fo their gutters, we would also like to help those who would rather do it themselves under all circumstances. What you essentially need to get your debris off your gutter as a home owner is a good ladder, clean hand gloves and a face mask. These are primary requirement for you to do a decent job on you gutter cleaning. Having said that, you need to be aware of your surrounding space. You need good space to erect your ladder and its advisable to have someone down the ladder to help hold down the ladder for you so it doesn’t wiggle and trip you off.

If you already tick those must have tools and you have made it up there on the ladder, you then need to relax and skillfully pick those debris and gently place them in a bucket handing next to you on the ladder. Again, we advice home owners to hire a professional gutter cleaner to help them with this job rather than getting dirty themselves.

How to Fix Roof Leak From the Inside

We generally would advocate for prevention as a better way of having longevity rather than waiting for cure, however, in the case whereby you have gone beyond prevention, you might as well take the cure if your case is still curable. In this section of our article, we would briefly show how to fix roof leak from the inside by giving some useful tips.

First of all let me start by saying that roof leaks are very confusing to diagnose, most especially if you are not a professional. As explained above that all sorts of reasons can be responsible for roof leak, and detecting those roof leaks can be very challenging. The most effective way to repair a roof leak is through outside, however, in cases where getting it done from the outside sin’t feasible you can successfully fix it from the inside temporarily. The question then is how do you fix roof leak from the inside?

Seal the leak

Locate the source of the leak by examining the underside of the roof from within your attic or crawl space. Shine a flashlight along the underside of the roof and look for a hole in the roof as well as areas that are wet or have been darkened by moisture. Mark the areas that appear to be leaks with chalk so they will be easier to find later when making a permanent repair. Let the wet areas dry and then apply the patch to the underside of the roof with a putty knife. Use enough of the roof patch to liberally cover the leaky area. Use a caulking gun to apply caulk to seal any holes that appear in the roof. Use the putty knife or your finger to spread the caulk around to cover the hole.

Divert the Water

Insert a nail in the hole where water is leaking through the roof. The nail will provide a path for the water. Place a bucket underneath the nail to catch the water as it runs down the nail. Patch the hole from the inside as soon as the area is dry enough for the caulk or roof patch to be applied.

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