Roof Leak Repair: When Roof Leaks Appear But There’s No Rain & It’s Freezing

A good roofing system should stand all of mother natures furry. So why does a roof leak when it’s freezing outside?

Well…… Likely it’s not the roof. In this video I go over some common reasons water leaks or stains may appear but a roofer may not be necessary to complete a roof leak repair Arlington Heights IL. There are additional reasons why this may occur and I’ll cover those reasons in future videos.

Know when a roof leak repair is necessary by addressing the problem areas:

Your humidistat is turned up too high.

This is the most common call in the winter to for roof leak repairs. Look at your windows, skylight glass, metal window frames too. If they demonstrate condensation on them, you have a excessive amount of humitidty on the inside of your home.

Typically you’ll find the whole house humidistat located in your furnace room and a humidifier is typically found attached to your furnace.  The control for the humidistat may have instructions on how to properly set the humidity based on the temperatures found outside. Don’t have a controller for your humidifier? Call an HVAC specialist to help address this issue. A smart thermostat like a Nest will display the humidity on the screen for your home.  Stand-alone humidifiers designed for individual rooms to increase comfort typically may demonstrate most moisture on the windows.

Not Enough Intake or Exhaust Vents

Your home needs a balance air flow between the eaves (by your gutters)  and the ridge (peak) of your roof. Most building codes call for a minimum net free area of 1/300. Many local building codes are more stringent and require 1/150 square feet of net free area.

Net free area is the amount of open air in your attic that allows air to pass through.  A simple calculation for this is done by taking the total square footage of your attic and dividing it by 2. This will tell you how much roof ventilation is necessary at the eaves and the ridge of you roof equally.  If the ventilation cannot be equally balanced, it’s recommended by “AirVent” to have more intake then exhaust in these circumstances.  This calculation gets further broken since the ratings on each vent is in square inches.

Finally, The importance of proper roof ventilation is further covered in our video “Roof Vents: Installing Roof Vents and Under Eave Soffit Vent”

Not enough insulation or improperly installed insulation

Having a lack of insulation will cause heat to rise through to the attic. The goal in your attic space is to have the temperature and relative humidity as close to the conditions of the exterior of your home. Insulation should be installed in a uniform manner at the same height throughout the entire attic space. According to energystar.gov, “Insulation level are specified by R-Value. R-Value is a measure of insulation’s ability to resist heat traveling through it. The higher the R-Value the better the thermal performance of the insulation.” Energy Star requires the midwest to have an R-Value of R49-R60 in the attic space.

Many times people hire a handyman or complete blown in insulation as a DIY. Both are acceptable methods of getting the job done. However, it’s very important to make sure the insulation doesn’t block the intake vents at the eave of your home. This will increase moisture and can lead to fungal growth and increase the deterioration of your roof plywood sheething which both are costly fixes.

Your bath fan isn’t used properly or is installed incorrectly.

The humidity from your shower is pushed through the pipe which is lead throught the attic space. This exhaust must lead through the exterior of the roof. Many times, you’ll find there is no pipe in the attic or the pipe is not installed through the roof exterior.  Both lead to moisure being pushed into the attic space which isn’t healthy for your roofing system.

Save yourself some time and money by peeking through your attic space before you call in the roofer for your roof leak repair. Many times you can lead this out to your exhaust vent yourself. In the event a hole and vent is not present in your roof, a roofer will be necessary to install a roof exhaust vent. When the end of your pipe is near and not in an exhaust hole, it can cause moisture to buildup in the pipe which will turn into ice. When it gets warm, you will see what appears to be a leak. It’s the ice melting in the pipe.

It’s now common and required in some instances to have the attic exhaust pipe fully insulated to keep the variation in temperatures separated.

If you need someone to come out and take a look at your roof leak, feel free to reach out to the team at Revived Exteriors.