How To Repair A Roof Leak In The Winter

Isolate areas when you run the hose.

How to repair a roof leak in the winter. To stop the leak use a long handled roof rake to remove snow from your roof or blow cold air onto the area of the roof that is leaking in your attic using a box fan. If you plan to replace shingles in the winter it can be done but you have to add something to bond the shingles together. Add 8 inches for the thickness of the wall studs plus drywall plus exterior siding. 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.

Make use of the flame carefully on the curled shingle edges. In the wintertime ice has no problem building up under the roof membrane shingles and gutters. The ice builds back up when it reaches the wall line where the house is heated and it creates an interior drip. Proper ventilation rain and ice shields along with installing a drip edge will help prevent this problem.

The purpose is to keep the shingle tabs down in high winds. For example soak the downhill side of a chimney first then each side then the top on both sides. This will freeze the leaking water in place but you ll still need to deal with the ice dam or it will melt and start leaking again. If a leak is difficult to find enlist a helper and go up on the roof with a garden hose.

Then add in the width of the overhang. You nail shingles to the roof of course but each shingle has a tar strip on it that causes it to stick to the shingle that overlaps it. The roof shingles should be softened and flattened as the shingles tend to curl up in winter. Roof leaks are problematic at any time of the year but they re especially troublesome in the winter.

The shingles can be warmed up with a propane torch. Measure from the inside wall to the point of the leak. Locate the source of the leak by examining the underside of the roof from within your attic or crawl space. How to repair a leaky roof from inside the house.

Locate the leaking source and search for the damaged or missing shingles and make a list of the areas to be repaired.