The first real storm of the season is when many San Jose homeowners find out the roof has a problem: a new stain on the ceiling, a drip at a light fixture, or a damp spot along a wall. Here is what to do first, how to narrow down the source, and what the repair usually involves.
- If water is near a light fixture, outlet or the electrical panel, turn off that circuit at the breaker first.
- Do not go up on a wet roof. Catch the water inside, take photos, and wait for a dry day.
- Not every ceiling stain is the roof. A stain under a bathroom is often plumbing.
- In San José, replacing or repairing 25% or more of a roof needs a building permit.1
1. Deal with safety and the water first
If water is coming through a light fixture, a ceiling fan or near an outlet, turn off that circuit at the breaker before you do anything else. Put a bucket under the drip, move furniture and rugs out of the way, and lay towels down. If water is pouring in or the ceiling is sagging, stay out from under it and call an emergency water mitigation provider for extraction and drying.
2. Write down what you see
Take photos of the stain or drip, and note the date, the time, and how hard it was raining. Note the wind direction if you can. A leak that shows up only in wind-driven rain points to a different place than one that shows up in every storm. Keep these notes and photos for your insurer and for whoever does the repair.
3. Look in the attic
If you can safely get into the attic, take a flashlight and look above the stain. Water often runs along a rafter or the underside of the roof deck before it drips, so the wet spot on the wood can be several feet uphill from the ceiling stain. Look for wet or dark wood, wet insulation, and daylight around vent pipes and the chimney.
4. Where roofs usually leak
- Flashing: where the roof meets a chimney, a skylight, a wall that rises above a lower roof, or a vent pipe. Old sealant and loose metal here cause many leaks.
- Pipe boots: the rubber collars around plumbing vents crack in the sun.
- Valleys: where two roof slopes meet, leaves collect and water backs up.
- Missing or damaged shingles or tiles: often after wind.
- Gutters: a clogged gutter can overflow behind the fascia and show up as a stain near an exterior wall.
5. When it is not the roof
A stain below a bathroom is often a plumbing leak, from a shower pan, a toilet seal or a supply line. Those show up whether or not it rains. A stain at the top corner of a window can come from the window itself or the siding and caulk above it, not the roof. If the stain grows on dry days, think plumbing first.
6. Getting it repaired
A roof leak is usually two jobs: fixing the roof, and repairing what the water damaged inside, such as insulation, drywall, texture and paint. In San José, roof repairs or replacements that cover less than 25% of the roof and do not involve the framing underneath do not need a building permit. Larger roof work does.1 Tell your insurer or agent what happened and ask how your policy applies before authorizing work beyond emergency mitigation; California's claims guide recommends protecting the property from further damage and keeping records of temporary repairs.2
We handle both halves on one scope: roofing through our licensed C-39 subcontractor, and the interior repair ourselves. See our roof leak repair page.
Before the next storm
If you have not had a leak yet, the dry weeks are the time to look. Our El Niño home prep checklist covers gutters, flashing, caulk and the attic, and our free El Niño storm check covers 50 points inside the house plus a preliminary estimate for the roof, gutters, siding and caulking.