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momma_bird_oh

A Disaster finally conquered!

Momma_Bird_OH
21 years ago

I just have to share because I'm so excited. DH and I have owned our home for 10 years. It's a Cape Cod (1 1/2 story) with attached breezeway between the house and garage. The roof over the breezeway has leaked the entire time we've owned the home. The prior owners, a MINISTER and his wife, just scraped and painted over the place on the breezeway ceiling where the leak shows when they put the place on the market - we could tell where they had touched-up after it started bubbling a few months after we bought the house.

We tried sealing the roof, tarring the flashings where the breezeway meets the house, etc for 5 years. Nothing worked. Then we had a new roof put on, with a complete tear-off of the old roof. Fortunately, the wood had not rotted, but the roofer said he couldn't tell exactly where the leak was coming from. The first rainstorm after the new roof was done, it leaked in the same spot again. The roofer has been back 2 X a year for the last 5 years, replacing flashings, tarring, caulking, etc but nothing has worked.

The house has aluminum siding over wood siding. A friend suggested to me last week that I caulk all spots where the siding meets from the breezeway roof to the top of the house (this had never been done). I got out there last week and used 4 tubes of calk and sealed every tiny junction of the aluminum siding - not a crack remains.

It's rained twice, and THE ROOF DIDN'T LEAK!!!! I am overjoyed - finally one of the disaster areas in my money pit of a house is fixed! It turns out it wasn't the roof leaking at all - water was getting in some crack in the siding, dripping down to where the roof meets the house, then traveling 1/2 way across the breezeway and dripping down.

This is just a story to inspire all of you who may be strugging with what I describe as my God-forsaken he!! hole of a house!!

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