Roof Leak Repair in Chester County: What to Do in the First Hour

If water is coming through your ceiling right now, do three things in this order: catch the water, stop it spreading, then call a roofer. Most roof leaks in Chester County are a repair, not a new roof, and the fix is usually at a flashing, a valley, or a pipe boot rather than in the shingles themselves.

What follows is the order we walk homeowners through on the phone, why the stain on your ceiling is almost never under the actual hole, and how to tell an emergency from a repair that can wait for a dry day. We repair roof leaks from our office at 841 Lincoln Ave in West Chester, out through Exton, Downingtown, Chester Springs and the rest of the county.

If you would rather skip the reading and have someone look at the roof, that work is our Chester County roof leak repair service.

The short version

• Catch it, then contain it. A bucket under the drip, a towel or plastic sheet over the floor and furniture, and if the ceiling is bulging with water, a small hole in the lowest point of the bulge with the bucket underneath so it drains instead of collapsing.
• The leak is not where the stain is. Water runs along rafters and decking before it drops, so the entry point is usually uphill of the stain, often several feet away.
• Most leaks are a repair. Flashing, valleys, pipe boots, and a few damaged shingles account for most of what we fix. A leak on its own does not mean the roof is done.
• An active leak in a storm is an emergency. Water coming in while it is still raining, a sagging ceiling, or a tree limb through the roof is a call to make right away, while a stain that shows up after the rain stopped can be scheduled.

Water leaking from the roof: the first hour

Put a bucket or a pot under the drip, and move furniture and rugs out from under it or cover them with a plastic sheet.

If the ceiling drywall is sagging or you can see a bubble of water forming, push a screwdriver or a pencil into the lowest point of the bubble with the bucket underneath. When the water is contained, call us; the line is answered from 8 AM to 8 PM every day.

Then look at where the water is coming in. If it is at a light fixture or a ceiling fan, turn off the breaker for that circuit before you touch anything.

If the rain is still coming down

Do not climb onto a wet roof, and do not send anyone else up.

Take photos of the water, the stain, and anything it has damaged, for us and for any insurance claim later.

Why the stain is never right under the leak

A roof is a system of overlaps, and once water gets past the shingles it does not drop straight down.

It runs along the top of the underlayment, then along a rafter or a seam in the decking, soaks into the insulation, and finally shows up on a ceiling three feet or more from where it got in. On a house with a steep pitch, which describes most of the older colonials around West Chester and Chester Springs, the water can travel a long way downhill before it finds a place to drip.

Start at the stain and work uphill

This is why the homeowner who patches the shingles directly above the stain usually ends up calling us anyway. The entry point is uphill.

When we inspect a leak we start at the stain, work up the slope, and check every place the roof changes direction or something pokes through it. That is where roofs leak.

It is also why an attic visit is part of every leak call. From inside you can see the water trail on the underside of the decking, the dark streak down a rafter, and the wet patch in the insulation, and you can follow it back to the entry point far more reliably than you can from the shingle side.

Where Chester County roofs actually leak

The open field of shingles is the strongest part of a roof. Leaks happen at the edges and the interruptions. Around Chester County the same short list comes up for us week after week.

• Flashing at chimneys and walls: Where a roof plane dies into a chimney or a second-story wall, a strip of metal flashing carries the water. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles pry that flashing up and crack the sealant at its edges. On the older West Chester borough homes it has often been caulked over three or four times by three or four different people.
• Valleys. Two slopes meeting in a V carry more water than any other part of the roof. In the wooded lots around Chester Springs and Uwchland, leaves and fallen limbs pile up in the valleys, hold moisture against the shingles, and rot the decking underneath.
• Pipe boots and vents. The rubber collar around a plumbing vent dries out and splits after a decade or so in the sun. It is one of the most common leak sources we find and one of the quickest to fix.
• Ice dams at the eaves. On the shaded north-facing slopes common to Chester County, snow melts from the warm attic side, refreezes at the cold eave, and the ice ridge backs water up under the shingles. The leak shows up in late winter and looks like it came from nowhere.
• Wind-lifted or missing shingles. The thunderstorms that build over the Brandywine watershed push straight-line wind through the county. Shingles that lose their seal lift in the wind and let rain drive underneath.
• Layered roofs on old decking. A lot of the 19th-century homes near West Chester's historic downtown carry two or three layers of asphalt over original wood decking. Once water gets between the layers it can wander a long way before it shows.

Roof leak repair in Chester Springs and the older borough homes

The housing stock across the county is not one thing, and the leaks are not one thing either. The borough blocks of West Chester hold Victorians and twins from the 1800s, some still under slate and cedar, plus plenty carrying layered asphalt over aging decking.

Out in Chester Springs the roads run from centuries-old stone farmhouses to newer estate homes on wooded lots, with steep colonial pitches and deep overhanging eaves everywhere. Push toward Exton and Downingtown and the stock turns over to the 1960s through 1980s buildout, mostly asphalt roofs now reaching the end of their service life.

Slate in the borough, layovers out in Exton

A leak on a slate roof in the historic district is a different repair from a leak on an Exton split-level with a layover trapping heat over soft decking. The slate gets a matched replacement piece and new copper or lead at the flashing.

The split-level often gets the honest conversation about how much decking is soft and whether the repair is worth making. We do both, and we tell you which one you have before any work starts.

If you are in the northern part of the county, our crews are in and around Chester Springs constantly. The page on our Chester Springs roofing work covers how we work on the stone farmhouses and steep colonials out there, and the same crew handles the leak calls.

Emergency roof leak repair vs. a repair you can schedule

Not every leak is an emergency, and it helps to know which kind you have before you call. Water coming in while it is still raining, a ceiling that is sagging or has already come down, a tree limb or a section of roof gone after a storm, or water anywhere near electrical fixtures: those are the calls to make right away. We tarp the opening or make the temporary repair that stops the water, then come back for the permanent fix once the roof is dry.

A stain that appeared after the rain stopped, a slow drip during heavy rain only, or a mark on the ceiling that has not grown in weeks is a repair, and it can wait for a dry day when the work can be done properly. A gap that is a small repair in October becomes wet decking and a soft spot by spring, because the winter runs water into the crack, freezes it overnight, and widens it by morning, over and over from December into March.

Either way, the call is the same number, and we answer it from 8 AM to 8 PM every day. If the leak is active, say so when you call and we will treat it that way. Our West Chester emergency repair page explains what an emergency visit looks like and what we can and cannot do while the roof is still wet.

What a roof leak repair involves

Every leak starts with an inspection, and our roof inspection visit is free. We look at the roof from the ground, then from the roof, then from the attic, and we photograph what we find so you can see the entry point rather than take our word for it. Once we know where the water is getting in, the repair is usually one of a handful of jobs: resetting or replacing flashing and resealing its edges, replacing a split pipe boot, clearing and relining a valley, replacing the lifted or missing shingles and resealing the courses around them, or cutting out a section of rotted decking and laying new sheathing, underlayment and shingle over it.

When we open a leak up we also check the layer underneath. On a newer roof there should be ice-and-water shield at the eaves and in the valleys and a synthetic underlayment across the deck. Both are part of the full GAF system we put on as a Master Elite contractor.

On a lot of older roofs there is tar paper, or nothing. The underlayment is the second line of defense the shingles are supposed to have, and a repair that puts it back where it belongs is what keeps the same spot from leaking again next year.

What a repair will not do

The one thing a leak repair will not do is make a worn-out roof young again. If the inspection turns up shingles that are brittle across the whole slope, granules piled in the gutters, or soft decking in more than one place, we will tell you the roof is close to the end and show you the photos. Repair versus replacement is a judgment call, and there is a separate article on how we weigh repair against replacement in Chester County, but the short version is that we repair what can honestly be repaired.

What not to do when the roof is leaking

A few things make a leak worse or more expensive, and we see all of them.

• Do not climb a wet roof. The repair can wait for the rain to stop; a fall cannot be undone.
• Do not caulk over the flashing and call it fixed. Sealant on top of failed flashing holds for one season, and when the water comes back the flashing is buried under a bead of caulk that has to be cut out.
• Do not ignore a stain because it dried. The water that made the stain went somewhere, usually into the insulation, where it stays wet long after the ceiling looks fine.
• Do not let a roofer sell you a full roof over one leak. Ask to see the photos of what is failing everywhere else before you agree the whole roof is done.

Roof leaks: frequently asked questions

Water coming in? Start with the free inspection.

We find the entry point from the roof and the attic and photograph it before any work is quoted. Leaks, flashing and pipe boots are our roof leak repair in Chester County service; water coming in during the storm goes straight to emergency roof repair in West Chester. Either way it starts with a free roof inspection with photos you keep. In the northern part of the county, the same crew that handles roofing in Chester Springs takes the leak calls. Or call (484) 983-3476, 8 AM to 8 PM every day.