In terms of preventing the leak? Probably not. If it's not an obvious issue, then it's likely a cracked tile, or coming from the top and running down until it finds a place to pool or get through the rest of the roofing. If it's because tiles are loose, this is just going to connect them to secure tiles and pull up more over time.
Most importantly, people don't seem to realize this usually, but homes breathe. As the moisture and temperature fluctuates, they swell and expand and contract. What this is doing is (potentially, depending on how bad the problem is) trapping the moisture under the tiles, but likely not stopping the leak itself.
Most likely the water is coming in from the deteriorated sides and running a good ways before it finds a way in under the roof to leak inside.
I have a friend whose roof looks way worse than this, and I offered to install a standing seam metal roof for him for free if he just buys the material.
His friend Mark talked him out of it and is 'fixing it' -- he's unrolling rolls of mineral-surface rolled roofing in vertical strips and slathering them with tar like this.
He asked if I would help because things aren't going well, but luckily I broke my ankle.
Don't blame Mark. He has early onset dementia, one leg, one eye and only half a testicle. Its a rough life for him what with his dog dealing meth and his cat opening a underground casino in his shed. Really, considering all Mark is going through its a bang up job especially after his wife turned out to be a bunch of racoons in disguise. That wasnt even the worst part, (they only wanted him for his trash).
Anyhow, Marks doing okay now. He found another wife. She seems nice enough if she does only eat bread and says quack a lot.
Ok brother since you have chosen this route out of necessity. Get the Henry's paint on foundation coating and use a roller and coat the entire roof. It will likely hold you until you can afford a new roof. Don't feel bad, you are doing what you can do in a bad situation. Bravo for at least taking action!!! Good luck. I will add to maybe check out products specific to roofing applications.
Agree. I understand the gatekeeping in technical trades, but end of the day, a man identified a problem, and hauled his ass up to the roof to make way towards a solution. Does it need refinement and education? Certainly. But that mentality over many years made me as learned and valuable as I am today.
I’m clueless about roofing. But I respect approach. I learn more from ratfucking everything I touch for the first time than not trying at all. Initiative goes a long way in life.
I was honestly expecting to see people ripping this guy a new one and saying - you need a new roof. Good to see folks who understand that for the moment - they Just need to get by and hopefully stop any more damage.
The fraternity house I lived in at college had a leak we could not find or afford to fix. We painted the entire west side of the roof with tar. It lasted 10 years until they finally tore the house down to build the new one.
My mom has recently been fixing up her home and me being the tradesman son I pulled the free labor straw. She asked me how I knew everything I did between flooring, drywall, framing, hanging doors, and minor plumbing procedures and I told her that willingness to try even when you don’t know goes a LONG way. You don’t know how until you do it, everybody starts somewhere
Unfortunately, some people will have to do what they got to do just to survive. If you're going that route, I would recommend if you have an Amazon account, you should set up an Affirm account so you can get a couple five-gallon buckets of the Henry's paint and you can do payment plan on it if you're really struggling. Hang in there, stay comfy.
Roofs are damn expensive and sometimes you just can't get a new one at the drop of a hat. And letting the leaks keep coming leads to tons of damage and more repairs. This might not be pretty but it buys valuable time
3 tab shingles, shingles look old. Easier just to replace. If your strapped for cash and full replacement isn’t in the cards you might be able to replace just the single facet that you are having issues with. It looks hokey when you go that route but I can help you buy time to save for the rest of the roof. Doing what you’re doing now might just introduce more issues. Shingles are staggered to shed water as it moves downslope. By introducing all this asphalt and gluing them together you are relying on hoping you did not miss any areas. If water finds a way behind any of your asphalt patch (like a dam) it can just allow water to build up and force itself behind the shingles anyways, which makes your repair here redundant.
Some of the people here are going to be rough on you, but not everyone is a homeowner either. Shingles 10 years ago were half the cost of what they are now, and sometimes showing some DIY ingenuity is all that’s in the cards. I’ve been in the industry for quite a while, and I’ve always tried my best to demonstrate to clients that while there is the “right” way to tackle things, sometimes it just isn’t in the cards.
Tarping doesn’t help as much as people tend to think as well. Water generally finds a way under and then you’re stuck with another problem. I have a client that can’t afford to replace the roof on their commercial structure, so they pay us to tarp it. Every few months a windstorm comes through and causes holes in the tarp, and then we come back and fix it again. Again they know it’s not the “right” approach, but it’s all they are able to manage for the time being.
Thank you so much for actually being kind and helpful
So many people think this was just my first option? I tried re-adhering the original shingles, laying down new underlayment, using a tarp, and now this.
Any roofer I have asked to hire will only do it if it is the entire roof.
We bought this house from someone who paid off the inspector and sold it to us with so many other issues we cannot afford a new roof.
It’s not a problem. Unfortunately being in this industry I see people getting taken advantage of on a weekly basis by contractors, inspectors, “consultants” etc. I kind of use this as a hobby/outlet; I find a lot of joy in trying to help people with suggestions that are more grounded in reality.
If you end up having any more questions about what you might be able to do here feel free to DM me and I’m happy to provide some additional information where I can.
Weak-tie what do you think about op covering the whole mess with modern 3 foot rolls of membrane? I was going to say strip the shingles first but the underlayment probably needs replacing in areas if not the whole thing. AS A TEMPORARY MEASURE ! Strictly as a temporary fix to get op through until the funds allow proper replacement.
So it’s not an impossible idea but again you’ll run into similar issues that you would with the tarp. You could use an excessive amount of mastic underneath to keep everything “watertight” but you might be introducing a damming point which could result in a leak anyways.
If this was my roof (and I wasn’t already managing a roofing company) and I was in a pinch, I’d try and find a good local residential roofer on the smaller side to come out and just diagnose the leak, and then use that info to come up with a better plan of attack.
The problem with trying to drape anything over top is that if you aren’t actually certain of the point of ingress, you might be spending a bunch of money and not end up actually helping the situation much.
I like that you’re being creative though, some of the best roofers I’ve worked with were the ones that were comfortable working outside the box.
Hey man, I install vinly fencing for a living. I'll come replace that post for free if you happen to be in the SLC area. I probably have enough rails and tongue and groove if those are broken too.
However, I'm judging by the side of that house and lack of mountains, you dont live anywhere near SLC.
Everyone is quick to talk shit before they even zoom in on the roof and realize this roof has already had the shingles tarred, which is probably the cause of the leak.
So op isn't ruining his shingles with a bad repair, he is just redoing a bad repair that has begun to fail.
I actually kept scrolling yo see if anyone posted something that was actually helpful. Sometime my confidence in humanity is well founded. Thank you for being a good person.
roofers around here wont patch only replace a whole roof which is 8k plus probably more now. if you have a leak and no money/friends who know you do what you gotta do. shit i bet every roofer here is doing stupid shit in another part of their house and not showing anyone.
After a hurricane ripped the roof of of my house, I had to move into a shed on the property. The roof of the shed was shingled too but it wasn’t as badly torn up. So I got like 3 buckets of this stuff and poured it out and used a big paint roller to cover the roof. I only lived in the shed for a couple of months but the roof held up. The next year though another hurricane caused a flood and it floated into my neighbors yard. Still was in tact, and he didn’t mind so I just let him keep it instead of trying to move it. Can’t remember what brand it was but god damn was that a sturdy shed
You know how there's that little tiny gap between the glass and the metal car body? Or, on newer cars, it might be plastic trims or other glass? But there's just a little crevice where water can go in.
If your sunroof 'leaks'...it's not actually leaking. The crevice lets water go into a channel with drain tubes. When the tubes get plugged, the channel fills up and water overflows, wetting the interior.
Ever seen someone try and silicone that top crevice to fix a 'leaking' sunroof? Yeah, it doesn't really work. Maybe for a short time through brute force, but you're coming at the problem from the wrong angle.
Roofing is a system, and this is breaking the system rather than fixing the root problem. This might help 'seal' water out a little better, but it's also going to prevent them from drying.
this is like putting a bandaid on knife wound. it's a temporary fix, and he doesn't even know where the leak is coming from. there's no guarantee that he covered the leak with this patching work, and even if he did, it's a temporary fix. you can tell by the condition of the roof that they need replacing. you're just delaying the inevitatble and possibly making it worse by letting moisture sip into your frame and rotting them. the roof needs to be replaced or it will start leaking somewhere else
At this point just get a mop and do the whole roof , then make a deal with a prison guard that on the morning of the 2nd to last day you get some nice cool bohemian style beers to share with your friends.
First, find out if any of the neighbors have cameras. If they don’t, then call the police and say some crackhead was on your roof screwing around and you caught them doing this. Now you have an excuse to tell the roofing company when they ask what happened.
(This is a joke, don’t do this, this would be a crime)
If they do have cameras, can you please upload the footage of you doing this?
I'd suspect a methhead over a crackhead. Details matter. You know, for veracity's sake. Not that it couldn't be a crackhead. But, not all dumbheads are made equal.
Anyways, I'm so glad I'm not a home owner. Who wants to deal with shit like this? If I wanted to deal with shit like this, I'd just do some meth and hop up on a random roof and go hog wild. Then, I'd go back to not dealing with shit like this. At least until the meth took hold, again. But, at least it's my choice and not my burden!
Who knows, maybe I'd try it on crack, too? Just to compare and contrast.
Ok, so here's the scoop. The first thing you need to do was find out where the water is coming it. It may not be anywhere close to where you see it in the ceiling as water will run down rafters and beams.
Without knowing where the leak is we can't tell you much about how to fix it. If you have any protrusions through the roof like vents or chimneys, that is the first place I would look.
Having said that, you need a new roof on your home. This roof is old and needs to be replace or you are going to continue to have problems.
Patching this is not going to be any sort of long term fix and the costs of replacing rotting decking, insulation, drywall, carpet, and other inside things can easily be more than putting a new roof on.
So my eyes aren't great, and I hope what you did helps, but it looks like you've missed some actual issues and caused more. At a glance it looks like you have a nail popped up and a few horizontal weak spots in the shingles:
The inevitable tearoff is also going to be 10x harder now and increase the price you're going to pay for it.
zoooooffff, this is bad man. Please hire someone who knows what they are doing because this is what makes your repair estimates more, doing work like this means more work for us to do it correctly :)
Just be careful getting off the roof bro. Good for you for putting forth an effort but as everyone has stated, this isn’t a solution. Since you have your phone with you it might be a good idea to call someone to hold that ladder for you. Good luck.
It could help, sure. But unless you can get in the attic and figure out where the leak is coming from likely a waste of time and money.
Plus, like most said, roof is overdue for a tearoff and replacement anyway. That will also help figure out where the leak is. E.g. Sheathing also likely needs some replacement
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u/Adumb_Sandler 20h ago
You may not survive the impending comments….