Help Diagnosing a Porch Roof Leak

Ivan,

Each reply needs to be approved by Eric or another admin before it is published to the website. I have gone ahead and published your posts, but the images appear to broken in the subsequent messages.

Please try re-uploading in a new comment.

Andy Locke, Web Admin

Ivan,

Are you posting via the website or are you replying to the email? (trying to troubleshoot the image issue)

Andy

Testing the upload of "Side.jpeg"

Posting the file "Porch004.jpeg"

Counter flashing leak evidence

Picture from the outside please. Some that indicates pitch too please.

There appears, based on the rust, to be some degradation of the metal and the wall to roof connection. This would indicate to me that it is leaking at the counter flashing detail and then streaming down the panel.

Ivan,

I need to see the top side of the roof where it connects to the home and I am not 100% certain that this is the issue, but it is a starting point.

Is that window operable? I really need to see the roof to wall connection in this case.

I live in an older home that has an attached porch that I believe the previous owner installed himself. Someone suggested to me that may be a pre-fabricated porch in some sense, but I can’t be sure. The roof is made of metal and on top of the metal there is wood fencing. I have never seen fencing on a roof, but I imagine that the previous owner put it up there to decrease the noise and so that it would not get too hot. Even though I’ve never seen fencing on a porch roof, I’m really fine with it. Despite the fact that it is wood, the fencing on top of the roof does not appear to be rotting. Someone suggested to me that there could be debris between the wood and the metal that is causing a dam effect, but I have looked at there is no debris.

The metal roof seems to be made up of 21 panels about 5.5” by about 10 feet that are interlocked or overlapped. I know nothing about roofing, so I may be using the wrong terms. The 21 panels are attached to 6 metal cross supports. Those cross supports are, in turn, attached to 2 beams that run the length of the porch. I’m attaching photos.

During heavy rainstorms, at the bottom of the porch, there are bad leaks. The main leaks occur between the two pieces of blue tape, right where two of the panels overlap. The areas where there is green tape is gets wet to the touch, but I can’t tell where the water is coming from in those places.

These are my questions: from the pictures, could someone explain to me what I have, meaning, in metal roofing terms, what that kind of roof is called, or how it would be described? Is it called interlocking panels or what?

My funds are extremely limited so I really am not looking to replace the roof. I am assuming that the wood above the leak must be removed to address the issue (and I would seek to put the wood back in place afterwards). Short of replacing the metal roof, is there something that can be done to stop the leaks? Someone mentioned Dow Corning 795 Silicone Building Sealant to me. Could that be used? Is there some other sealant that could (or should) be used?

I appreciate any guidance that anyone can give. By the way, the uploading function is giving me problems so I may have to upload th images one by one.

Ok, thank you very much Andy. I'll try uploading again. I can't figure out why some upload just fine and others don't.

@alocke@responselabs.com said:
Ivan,

Try updating the file names to include only one "."

For example: "filename.jpeg" instead of "file.name.jpeg"

That additional "." may be causing an issue.

Andy

Hi Andy, I actually had tried that. The image I tried to attach to my reply to you was called "Porch.jpeg." I just renamed it to "Side.jpeg" and tried to send it. The one I called "Close-up.jpeg" seemed to go through.

Thanks, Eric. Is there any possible fix (short of deconstructing the whole metal roof)? Perhaps applying some sort of sealant?

This is a picture of the roof taken from a window above it. Obviously, one can’t see the metal roof at all from this vantage point, let alone where it is attached to the house. So it seems I have 3 choices: (1) do nothing and treat the porch as it were an open air, no roof deck; (2) remove all of the wood on top of the metal and proceed from there (paying particular attention to where the porch meets the house); or (3) remove only the wood above where the leaks actually are and inspect it there for possible problems. In options 2 or 3, would something as simple as sealant ever be a solution or is that just wishful thinking?

Not sure if you got my reply, Eric because I tried to upload pictures again. They may be too heavy. The window is operable, but it is difficult to see anything from the pics I took.