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What to Do If Your Roof is Leaking: Stop the Drip and Save Your Home

/ Residential Roofing, Storm Damage / By

Seattle-Tacoma weather is notorious for rain – lots and lots of rain (and even other forms of precipitation like snow and sleet). Many homeowners don’t know what to do when their roof begins leaking, a common occurrence throughout the Pacific Northwest. Worse, they often don’t understand who to contact. Not all roofing companies are created equal. Some offer services or products that others do not. In this informative article, we answer the question of what to do if your roof is leaking.

How To Identify A Roof Leak

Look for the following signs of moisture penetration when assessing a leak:

In all likelihood, water intrusion disfigured your walls or ceilings if you observe unevenness. While a plumbing leak could be the culprit, another possibility exists – that you have a leak from the exterior of your home.

The foul scent of mold, mildew, and dampness is unmistakable. Those smells should not be present inside of a home. Any sign of a musty odor almost certainly means the presence of moisture behind the walls or ceilings.

A compromised shingle is an open invitation to outside elements (like water) infiltrating a home’s interior. Moisture has an easy access point that can jeopardize your home’s integral safety immediately and over time.

Yellowing or browning of walls and ceilings indicates moisture penetration has entered your home’s interior. The severity of it demands tackling promptly and thoroughly because it is unlikely to go away on its own.

An S&S Roofing team member shaking hands with a satisfied homeowner.

What To Do If Your Roof Is Leaking

Aerial view of a tarp on a damaged, leaking roof.

If you observe a leak, immediately take steps to manage the situation.

When you observe a leak, move adjacent items away from the area and place them in a dry location far away from the leak. Victims of flooding in the home suffer avoidable damage because they don’t proactively remove items from the area at the first sign of a leak.

Putting a bucket under the leak might seem obvious. But the water needs to be collected somewhere. It is best to have the water dripping into a container (pail, trash can, kitchen pot) that can gather a high volume of water but also small enough that the homeowner can periodically empty it.

A bubbling or bulging interior surface may be damming excess water. Safely puncturing that pooling area (to allow the water to flow down and away into some type of containment unit) may help avoid far more dire circumstances, such as the collapse of a ceiling.

Assuming the leak is penetrating from above, securing the roof makes sense. Tarping over the exterior surface to prevent further water intrusion buys you time until a more permanent solution can be enacted. Homeowners should have a professional tarp over the roof.

Approach your attic or crawlspace safely from the interior to facilitate a visual inspection. Often, homeowners can draw significant observations from what is happening behind the surface and share that helpful information with a roofing contractor or home inspector.

Of critical importance, a homeowner needs to track and preserve a record of what has happened. This documentation protects your interests and gives you a veritable means to communicate effectively with a home inspector, roofing contractor, or insurance company.

Without question, when you observe evidence of a leak, connecting a reputable roofing company to the situation begins the process of prompt and final resolution. A delay only exacerbates the problem and turns it into a much more severe, or even dire, challenge.

Why take a chance? Quickly addressing a known problem limits or prevents far more significant and costly challenges.

Risks Of Not Taking Action If Your Roof Is Leaking

Procrastination. The #1 reason why minor issues morph into catastrophic losses. Avoid this outcome. If you observe a leak, immediately save yourself untold problems with swift, decisive action.

Who To Hire If Your Roof Is Leaking

If you own a home in the Pacific Northwest, trust S&S Roofing in Seattle-Tacoma to deliver expertise to your roofing needs. We specialize in roofing and will provide sensible solutions that permanently address problem areas. Contact us today to learn more about our services or schedule a free initial consultation.

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