A small patch of damp appeared on my kitchen ceiling, which sits below a 10yr old flat roof.

Just wondering if the most likely spot for a leak is the roof felt directly above the damp patch? The leak is about 5ft in from both walls, and therefore not obviously close to any of the felt junctions.

Aiming to get on the roof tomorrow and inspect above the leak spot. Can see it from a window, nothing obvious, but has layer of gravel over.

What’s my best course of action? If someone could point me a a product that would solve it with the flick of a switch that would be just grand 😉

For a small patch of damp you’re probably looking at a small failure, you can get a brush on tar/resin which will re seal it. I liberally coated ours which lasted for another 2 years. Then it started again so we got the fooding replaced which wasn’t done properly and resulted in us and the neighbours getting our bedrooms redecorated and the whole roof and gutters redone.

When mine failed over Xmas 2015 I went up on the roof and the 16+ year old roof (I suspect it was at least 25 years old judging from the house info we got when we move in) had a long split in the felt. I swept the roof off, cleaned and dried the crack as best as possible and applied Wickes Emergency roof repair in copious quantities (actuality it should be called bodging fluid). This stopped the leak and then had to get a new roof. Went for GRP after much investigating.

Ah, so in both those cases the ingress point was obvious? I’ve got a feeling this wont be quite so straight forward.

Not talking a lot of water, its been raining for days, and the only reason I can tell its damp is the paint has gone off white. Also putting the damp meter on the stain give a blatant reading. But no drips, doesn’t feel damp to the touch etc.

The damp patch can very easily be a long way from the leak.

Tricky things, leaks. (Former Building Surveyor)

Just get up there and have a good look, and remember that water mostly flows down hill.

Good luck.

APF

UrbanHiker – Member
Ah, so in both those cases the ingress point was obvious?

Nope, just coated the whole roof in bodge fluid.

Thought that might be the case. Think I’ll start by having a good look, and if nothing obvious reseal the edges first. Not sure I can face doing the whole roof.

Ta for the input.

If you do end up doing the roof, don’t get the basic eg felts etc, go EPDM rubber, GRP etc, its worth it.

We had a leak in our flat garage roof; the damaged felt wasn’t above where the water came through, but it was fairly obvious on sweeping all the moss and stones aside, there was a slight ridge in a straight line that had just gone brittle and worn through. It wasn’t at a join.

That fibrous roof repair stuff is awesome. Wear clothes you don’t care about; don’t bother trying to clean the paintbrush afterwards, it’ll never be useful again (get several really cheap ones just in case you don’t fix it first try…).