The origin of leaks on a tile roof can be very difficult to trace.
Especially on a tile roof with sarking. Where your leak is showing up on your ceiling below may not be where the water leak is originating from on your roof.
Detecting a leak on a tile roof with sarking usually means searching upstream of the leak appearance on the ceiling. When you lift the tiles out – there should be tell tale signs (water streaking) on the sarking. Then it is just a matter of taking more tiles out until you find where the roof leak comes from.
Every leak is different and sometimes it can be extremely difficult to track it down. I usually start inside the house and identify where the leak is. Then it is onto the roof to explore.
Sometimes, it takes several trips up and down to verify exactly where the leak is. Then the first phase is checking the surface of the roofing elements without removing part of the roof. Sometimes, this is all it takes and the guilty roofing element is found. We can then do a roof repair with some element of confidence
Other times, there is no easily identifiable cause of the roof leaks. This means phase 2. Tiles are lifted out or metal roof sheeting removed. This will usually verify the origin of the roof leak(s) so that a repair can be carried out.
Phase 3 is the actual repair of the roof leak(s). This usually means that I will provide a written roof repair quote to the house owner and if the quote is accepted, I need to organise materials and schedule my guys to do the work.
Every now and then, the repair work is quite simple and I can do it on the spot. This is a cheaper roof repair option for the home owner than having to organise a team of guys to do the work on another day.
The video below shows how to track a leak on a concrete tile roof – which had a redundant solar hot water system on it:
