Does it RAIN In Your Living Room Too?

Last week one night, it may have been Thursday when I fell asleep on the sofa only to be woken up by the rain.  Considering all of the rain that we have been having lately it should not have woken me up except for the fact that I was not just hearing the rain I was actually getting wet.  Since I had never gotten wet from the rain inside of the house before, I immediately jumped up.  It was like I was outdoors only that was not the case – it was raining in the living room.

Right away I noticed that one area of the room was getting wetter than others so I placed a pail there hoping to catch as much of the water as possible.  The remaining area where water was coming in was too widespread for a pail so I put a towel there hoping to catch some more of the water.  Fortunately, the rain quickly stopped and so did my leaky ceiling.

The next day, immediately upon inspection, I could see that the water that had been coming in was coming from one of the skylights.  There are several reasons why your skylights could leak including, a bad seal, condensation or as I suspected in our situation old, worn out flashing up on the roof. 

As you know, this blog is about inner growth through expanding your horizons in home maintenance and repair, but I also stress knowing your limits.  And even though I am a handyman and have been for the past 16 years I know that roofing especially when it involves skylights should be left to a professional roofer.  They do it day in and day out and have the experience to get the job done right.  But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have some knowledge about the job.
 
This way you can make intelligent decisions because you know what you are talking about and the growth comes from the learning experience and even more importantly from the confidence of getting the job completed right even though you many have not lifted a single tool.
 
So as I already mentioned, if you find that skylights are leaking and it is raining in your living room as it was in mine I suggest hiring a professional.  However, what you want to make sure is that they peel back your roofing shingles and install new flashing.  I checked on the “This Old House “ website and this is what I learned.

They prefer step flashing on the sides because it interlocks with the roof shingles for a good seal. The top of the skylight should be protected with a continuous piece of head flashing that overlaps the uppermost row of the step flashing and is overlapped itself by shingles.

I told you that roofing needs to be left to the pros.

Sometimes to get a job done right you need to take a step back and let a professional do the job.  Check out my post on how to hire a contractor.  They have the “know how” and experience that you do not have from doing that kind of work on a daily basis.  And although I encourage folks to challenge themselves and take on slightly more than they have done before, taking on a big job and having no experience at all can only lead to disastrous results.  Being a good DIYer means knowing your limitations and growing as a person will come through making the right choices.