Leak Investigations

April 4, 2017 Laura MacCormac

When a tenant spots an obvious leak you have an emergency on your hands.  That roof leak could be something that built up over time and has finally come through, or it could be something sudden that had a clear cause.  Whatever the situation is, you know you need a technician in as soon as possible to do a roof leak investigation.

So what really happens when a technician shows up?

We perform an investigation by finding the leak and taking steps to trace it back to the source.  It depends on where it is, sometimes we have to look into attics or rafters, around windows and soffits. Lights, skylights and vents are also places our technicians look for water ingress.

Here a tenant spotted a leak and put down a bucket with some tarp.  We were alerted.

We started the leak investigation by looking at the deck directly above the leak.

We lifted the bricks and insulation and stacked them to the side so we could inspect the membrane underneath.

We discovered a plugged drain and some ponding water.

The drain was plugged with debris so we removed that and relieved the ponding water.

We discovered a small penetration in the membrane.

While there we found the membrane was deteriorating.

We cleaned and prepared the membrane and  applied water-cut-off mastic to temporarily seal penetrations and deteriorated membrane found on the deck.

Upon further investigation we discovered the corner membrane had failed.

We applied water-cut-off mastic to temporarily seal the failed membrane in the corner of the deck.

We installed an SBS base sheet as an additional protective layer.

In this leak investigation there were a few reasons for the leak.  There was a small hole in the roof membrane and the drain was plugged.  The plugged drain caused water to pool, which found it’s way to that hole.  The other issues we discovered while there would have led to more leaks.  These temporary repairs need to be followed up with permanent repairs.