Leak diagnosis & repair

Where Las Vegas roofs actually leak

A roof almost never leaks through the field, whether it is tile, shingle or flat. It leaks at the details, the places where the underlayment is cut, lapped or terminated: pipe jacks and vent boots that split in the sun, valleys where two planes of water meet, the sidewall and headwall flashing where the roof meets a stucco wall, skylight curbs, satellite-dish and old solar mounts, and the ridge and hip lines where mortar or foam has cracked. Water enters at one of those and travels along the underlayment, sometimes several feet, before it finds a seam and shows up on your ceiling.

That is why we do not quote a leak over the phone and why we do not patch where the stain is. We find the entry point. Then we tell you what the fix is, whether it is a $-hundreds detail repair or evidence that the whole underlayment has gone.

Common valley leak sources

• Split pipe boots: the rubber or lead collar around a plumbing vent, cooked brittle by the sun. The single most common leak we see.
• Valleys: debris dams, undersized or corroded valley metal, or tile cut too tight so water runs under it.
• Wall flashing: stucco applied over the flashing with no weep, or a cracked sealant joint at a headwall.
• Cracked or slipped tile: usually from foot traffic (HVAC and satellite techs), exposing the felt underneath to direct sun until it splits.
• Old penetrations: removed dishes, abandoned solar standoffs and swamp-cooler mounts that were never flashed properly.
• Brittle underlayment: when it is the paper itself, a repair is temporary and we will say so.