If you have a leak in your roof, alarm bells are ringing. But don’t panic! You don’t need to call in the professionals, but you do need to take steps to seal up any leaks and prevent moisture damage. This article will take you through the process of how to Repair a Roof, step-by-step. And give you the confidence that it’s possible for even someone who has never done this before!
Water damage is a terrible thing. If you’re working with a leak, it’s already happened and there’s no way to stop it. So the best thing you can do is stop more damage from occurring.
Step 1: Locating the Leak
Sometimes leaks are easy to find – they drip right through a hole in your roofing or you can see them streaming down the walls on your ceiling. But most of the time leaks happen “invisible” inside your home. Before you start ripping off shingles or tearing up drywall.
Step 2: Preparing the Area
No matter what you do, there will be some amount of damage when you repair your roof. The goal is to minimize it as much as possible. These steps will help you prepare your home to be worked on without causing additional damage.
1. Cover Your Walls and Furniture with Plastic Sheeting
Water damage is one of the most expensive types of damage to fix. Our first priority is to keep it from happening in the first place. This is easy – just cover all the walls and any furniture with plastic sheeting (you can get it from Walmart or any other department store) so that water can’t soak through onto your walls or flooring.
2. Remove Trash
Sometimes when you’re cleaning out your gutters, branches and leaves will get pushed into them. If you don’t clean it out before you start working on your roof, then you might cause more damage than there already is. Clear all the debris away from your roof before you start working so that you don’t have to worry about it in the future.
3. Getting the Big Stuff Out of the Way
The first step to repairing a leak is tackling all of the “big stuff” – ripping off damaged shingles and removing drywall or insulation that has been affected by water.
Step 4: Repair Your Roof
Now that you’ve gotten rid of all the big stuff, you’re ready to Repair a Roof – and we’re going to tell you how to do it. First, we’ll go over how to repair a shingle roof with a new layer of shingles using an asphalt-impregnated underlayment, underlayment paper and felt paper. Next, we’ll cover an asphalt roll roof replacement – similar to the shingle roof but with an entirely different process. Finally, we’ll cover what happens when there’s no more need for a layer of shingles but you still have damage on your roofline (i.e. underlayment or wood boards).
Conclusion
If the damage was really bad, then you might need to replace more than one layer of shingles. They are made for your type of roof (for instance, if it’s not a worn-down roof then don’t use old shingles). This is usually going to be around twenty or thirty shingles depending on how old your roof is and how much damage it has. You’ll need at least one layer of new shingles for every layer that was on your previous roof. Roofing felt paper – This should go over the asphalt underlayment that goes underneath your new layer of shingles.