Roof leak repair · Metro Vancouver & the Fraser Valley
Roof leak repair: the stain is almost never under the leak
Roof leaks start at penetrations, valleys, flashings at walls and chimneys, and blocked gutters and drains — not at holes in the middle of a roof. Water then travels along sheathing and rafters before it drops, so the mark on your ceiling is usually a metre or more from where the water got in. Finding the entry point is the whole job; the patch is the easy part.
Where leaks begin
Four places, over and over.
People picture a leaking roof as a hole. On Lower Mainland houses, actual holes are rare. Interruptions are not. A roof leak is nearly always a place where the roof surface had to stop and meet something else.
- Penetrations. Plumbing stacks, bath and kitchen fan outlets, HVAC curbs, skylights, satellite mounts, anything screwed through the roof for a solar or snow-guard bracket. Each one is a hole that has been made watertight by a collar, a boot or a piece of formed metal, and those parts age faster than the shingles around them. It is also where we find rot on roughly one tear-off in ten.
- Valleys. The line where two slopes meet carries a large share of the roof's water through a narrow channel. A valley lined properly with custom 26-gauge metal and membrane will outlast the shingles. A valley woven in shingle alone, or lined with an off-the-shelf strip that is too narrow, will not — and it fails silently, because the leak goes straight into the framing.
- Flashing at walls and chimneys. Where the roof meets a vertical surface, the water has to be carried out onto the roof by stepped metal woven into the shingle courses, with counter-flashing above it. When step flashing has been replaced by a single continuous L-shaped strip, or when somebody has run a bead of caulk instead, water gets behind the wall cladding and runs down the framing. This is the most common failure we find behind other roofers' work.
- Blocked gutters and drains. The most underrated cause of all. A gutter full of fir needles overflows backwards, under the roof edge and into the fascia and soffit. A blocked flat-roof drain or scupper ponds water until it finds the perimeter detail. Neither of these is a roofing defect and both of them leak like one.
There is a fifth cause that is not a leak at all: condensation from insufficient ventilation. It produces stains that look identical from inside the house, and no work on the roof surface will stop it.
Why it is hard to find
Water travels. That is why the stain lies to you.
Once water is past the roof surface it is inside a structure built out of long, sloped, overlapping pieces of wood. It runs along the underside of the sheathing until it reaches a seam. It follows the top of a rafter until the rafter meets a wall. It runs along the shank of a nail or the sheath of a wire and drips off the end. Only then does it land on drywall and make a mark.
The practical consequence: the entry point is always uphill of the stain, and often several metres away and on a different part of the roof. A ceiling mark in the middle of a living room can be fed by a wall flashing at the far end of the house.
This is also why the cheap version of leak repair fails so reliably. A roofer who does not find the entry point seals the nearest plausible thing above the stain, the homeowner watches the ceiling through one dry week, and the leak comes back in the next southeast storm.
What the timing of a leak tells you
- Only in hard wind-driven rain — a vertical-surface problem: wall flashing, chimney, siding junction or a lap that only fails under pressure.
- Starts an hour into rain, stops soon after — a small penetration or a pinhole path. The roof has to wet through before it delivers.
- Only in heavy downpours, never in drizzle — volume, not defect: gutters, valleys or a drain that only backs up when the flow is high.
- Worse during a thaw than during rain — snowmelt working under shingle courses, or an ice dam at a cold eave.
- Damp and musty all winter, no drip at all — condensation. Look at ventilation, not the roof surface.
If you can note when the leak appears and which direction the wind was coming from, you have already done the most useful half of the diagnosis.
Tonight
What to do before anyone arrives.
Everything here is done from inside the house. Nobody should be on a wet roof in the dark, and a roof that is already leaking is not made safer by someone standing on it.
- Move what water can ruin. Electronics, paper, rugs, anything upholstered. Ten minutes here saves the most expensive part of the loss.
- Contain the drip. A bucket, a pot, a bin. Put an old towel in the bottom so it does not splash and so you can hear how fast it is filling.
- Pierce a bulging ceiling. If drywall is sagging or ballooning, it is holding several litres. Push a screwdriver through the lowest point of the bulge, over a bucket, and let it drain in one controlled place. Doing nothing means the whole sheet comes down at once, usually at three in the morning.
- Kill power to the area if water is near a light, a fan or an outlet. Do not test it, switch the breaker.
- Photograph everything, before you clean anything. The stain, the drip, the bucket, the damaged contents, the outside of the house, any shingles on the lawn. Timestamped photographs are what turn an insurance conversation from an argument into a claim.
- Look, from the ground. Shingles in the yard, a piece of flashing hanging, a gutter overflowing in a sheet, a branch on the roof. Note it; do not go up after it.
- Clear what you can reach safely. If a downspout outlet at ground level is plugged, clearing it can drop the water level in the whole gutter run.
- Write down when it started and what the weather was doing. You will be asked, by us and by your insurer, and the answer narrows the search.
Insurance
Does home insurance cover a leaking roof?
The general shape of the answer is consistent across Canadian home policies, and the specifics are always in your own wording. We are roofers, not brokers, so treat this as orientation and then read the policy.
What is usually covered is sudden and accidental damage. A windstorm strips shingles, a branch comes through the roof, a storm drives water in through the damage it just caused — that is the kind of event home insurance is designed for. The resulting interior damage to ceilings, walls and contents is often covered as well.
What is usually not covered is wear and tear, aging materials, and damage that follows from maintenance that did not happen. A twenty-five-year-old roof that has reached the end of its life has not suffered an accident. Gutters that were never cleared, moss left to grow for a decade, or a leak that was known about for two winters are generally treated the same way. Many policies also exclude gradual seepage over time, precisely because it is not sudden.
The distinction usually turns on evidence, which is why the photographs matter and why reporting promptly matters. Insurers also expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage once you know about it — containing the water, and getting a temporary measure in place — and they generally expect you to keep receipts for that.
For a plain-language overview of how home policies are structured in Canada, the Insurance Bureau of Canada is a reasonable starting point. After that, call your own insurer or broker with the policy number in front of you. We can provide a written inspection report with photographs and a description of the failure, which is what an adjuster will ask for; what we cannot do is tell you whether your policy responds.
The repair
How we fix a roof leak near you.
We work from the symptom back to the cause, and we do not stop at the first thing that looks plausible.
- Free inspection of all accessible roof surfaces — slopes, hips, ridges, valleys, flashings, penetrations and the drainage system — starting uphill of the stain and photographed throughout.
- A fixed written price, not a range, with anything that can only be assessed once the roof is opened stated plainly up front rather than added later.
- A temporary measure first if the weather demands it. Peel-and-stick and torch-on both need a dry surface to bond to, so in a Lower Mainland winter the honest sequence is often stop it now, fix it properly in the next dry window.
- The detail rebuilt, not sealed. Custom 26-gauge flashing bent for the job, peel-and-stick membrane at every penetration, synthetic underlayment, and vents sized to the roof rather than whatever was up there.
- Workmanship warranted in writing — ten years on shingle, metal, cedar and composite work, five years on torch-on and flat membrane. Manufacturer warranties on the materials run separately, on their own terms.
If the inspection shows the leak is one symptom of a roof at the end of its life, we will say so and show you the photographs behind that opinion. In that case the useful next read is our guide to roof replacement cost in Metro Vancouver, and the decision is yours with numbers in hand.
We repair leaks across Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, the Tri-Cities, North and West Vancouver, New Westminster, Langley, Delta, White Rock, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack. WorkSafeBC registered, five million dollars in liability coverage, GAF certified, ICBA and BBB members.
Questions
Roof leaks, plainly answered.
Where do most roof leaks actually start?
At penetrations, valleys, wall and chimney flashings, and blocked gutters or drains. Those four account for the overwhelming majority of residential roof leaks in this region. A hole in the open field of a roof slope is rare, which is why hunting for one from the ground almost never works.
Why is the water stain not under the leak?
Because water does not fall straight down once it is inside a roof. It runs along the underside of the sheathing, down a rafter, along a nail shank or a wire, and drops at the first place gravity and a horizontal surface let it. A stain a metre or more from the actual entry point is normal, and uphill of the stain is where the search starts.
How do I stop a roof leak tonight?
Work from inside. Move furniture and electronics clear, put a bucket under the drip, and if the ceiling is bulging, pierce the centre of the bulge with a screwdriver over a bucket so the trapped water drains in one place instead of bringing down a sheet of drywall. Photograph everything. Do not climb onto a wet roof in the dark.
Does home insurance cover a roof leak?
In general terms, home insurance in Canada tends to cover sudden and accidental damage, such as a storm tearing shingles off, and tends not to cover wear and tear, aging materials or damage that follows from deferred maintenance. Policies differ substantially, so the only reliable answer is in your own policy wording and from your insurer or broker. Photograph the damage before anything is moved or repaired, and report it promptly.
Can a roof leak be repaired in the rain?
It can be stopped in the rain. It usually cannot be permanently repaired in the rain, because the adhesives, peel-and-stick membrane and torch-on used for a lasting repair all need a dry surface to bond to. The normal sequence in a Lower Mainland winter is a temporary measure now and the permanent repair in the next dry window.
How long can I leave a small roof leak?
Not long. The water you can see is a fraction of what is happening in the assembly: wet insulation stops insulating, sheathing softens, framing takes on moisture, and mould follows. A leak that looks like a small brown ring on a Tuesday is a significantly larger repair by the following winter.
Why does my roof leak only sometimes?
Because the failure needs a particular condition to show itself. Wind-driven rain from one direction, snowmelt, a gutter that only overflows in a downpour, or a drain that only backs up when the debris shifts. An intermittent leak is not a mysterious leak, it is a clue about which detail is failing.
Is a ceiling stain always a roof leak?
No, and this matters. Condensation from insufficient attic ventilation, a plumbing leak, or a failed bathroom fan duct all produce marks that look like roof leaks. Damp, musty air with frost on nail tips in winter and no drip during rain points to a ventilation problem, and no amount of work on the roof surface will fix it.
What does roof leak repair include?
Finding the actual entry point rather than the stain, opening up enough of the roof to see the cause, and rebuilding the detail properly: custom 26-gauge flashing, peel-and-stick membrane at penetrations, synthetic underlayment and correct vents. Workmanship is warranted ten years on shingle, metal, cedar and composite and five years on torch-on and flat membrane work.
Next
Get the leak looked at, and get a number.
If water is coming in now, call. If it has stopped and you want to know what you are dealing with, type your address and we measure the roof from satellite imagery, then price the work against what is up there today.