Sunroom Roof Repair | Fix a Leaking Sunroom Roof

LESLIE: Grace in Alabama’s next up on The Money Pit, who’s got a leaky sunroom by the fireplace. Tell us about what’s going on.

GRACE: I had a SolaGuard (ph) energy glass sunroom built in August ’07.

TOM: OK.

GRACE: And it’s leaking around the fireplace. The sunroof was built around the fireplace.

TOM: OK.

GRACE: And the sunroof people have been out about five times trying to fix it and it’s still leaking.

TOM: Well, the problem is that they’re not doing the right flashing job. You know, the trick here is wherever the sunroof is intersecting with the fireplace there has to be two types of flashing. There has to be a base flashing and a counter flashing and if they’re not installing this correctly the water’s going to find it’s way around there.

Now, does this only leak when it’s really heavy or does it leak all the time?

GRACE: Only when it’s heavy rain.

TOM: Well, do you have a roof that sort of pours water down towards the fireplace?

GRACE: Yes.

TOM: Alright. Well here’s another little trick of the trade. You can install a diverter on the roof, up a bit higher. It’s like an angled piece of metal that is sort of tacked on to the roof and sealed down. So it takes that big wave of water coming down the roof and sort of pushes it around the fireplace area. There should be, behind your fireplace, something called a cricket, which is a little part where the roof sort of peaks up into sort of a triangle point and that’s designed to divert water around the fireplace. You can further that action of the water washing around the fireplace by adding a diverter higher up. So suggest to the roofer that they consider doing the diverter.

However, this does not excuse their failure to do proper flashing there and that’s what’s causing that problem. One more tip and that is Grace makes a product called Roof Detail Membrane, which is a flexible product. And sometimes, in those tricky situations where you have a lot of intersecting lines, you can use a flexible flashing and kind of stretch it around there. That might also help seal it up.

Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.