What’s a quick fix for a leaking roof?

Quick fix for a leaking roof

Depending on your experience and the severity of the problem you should consider calling a roofer immediately, but if that’s not an option or it will be a while before the roofer can get to you home, you can always try fixing it yourself. And the good news is it can be easier than you think to cut off the flow of water and save your home from more water damage. Just follow these steps for a do-it-yourself leak fix:

Locate the leak’s source

This is going to be the most challenging part of patching a leak. You might have water pouring from a single point in your home or in several places across different rooms. You might have a trickle or a torrent or a bulging section of drywall. None of these are solid indicators for how bad the problem is. Most of the time your roof will leak allowing water to pool up and eventually find a place to drain which could be far from the original leak.

Before you locate the leak’s source, however, you’re going to want to make sure you protect your home’s interior. Place buckets under the dripping or if you have water trapped behind drywall or in the ceiling, poke a hole through the wall with a screwdriver so that the water can collect in one stream and drain.

It’s going to be easiest to find the leak during the day. Find a safe place to stand in your attic, turn the lights off and look for daylight shining through a crack in your roof where there’s maybe been some damage or a shingles worked itself loose. You can also do a water test. Wait until dry weather and then have a friend stand on top of the roof with a garden hose. While standing in the attic, have your friend house down section of the roof, starting at the bottom and moving up. Eventually you’ll see the roof begin to leak and will have located the source.

Emergency fix

If you don’t have time to wait until it’s bright and dry outside, there are also some quick fixes for a leaking roof.

If you’re comfortable maneuvering through in your attic during the storm, you can always try and see where water is dripping off the roof and onto your attic’s floor. If you locate that, place two boards underneath a bucket to distribute its weight and allow the bucket to gather the water saving your home from further damage.

If you know which shingle is loose you can also tuck some sheet metal underneath it to cover the hole and redirect water down the roof.

If you’re not as sure where specifically the leak’s coming from but do have a general idea, hometips.com recommends this solution:

• Grab a sheet of heavy duty plastic that can cover the leaking section of the roof from the bottom to the top
• Staple the edge of the plastic to a two-by-four that’s the same length as the plastic
• Nail another two-by-four to the original one and repeat the process on the other side of the plastic.

This will create a weighted cover for your home that won’t blow away in the wind.  Then give us a call at 402-616-7304 and our roofing professionals will come out and repair the leak for good!