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Spent a full weekend chasing down a leak from a 30 year old roof

I swear it took me from Friday night to Sunday afternoon to find a tiny rust hole near my chimney flashing. Turned out the previous owners had patched it with roofing tar and duct tape, which held for like a year before failing. Has anyone else dealt with a house mystery that took way longer to solve than you thought it would?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper16d ago

Nah, you're wrong about this being a mystery. A weekend to find a leak from a 30 year old roof isn't bad at all. That's actually pretty fast. Old houses have all kinds of hidden rot, bad wiring, and structural problems that take months or years to show up. Your "tiny rust hole" was probably obvious from the start if you had just looked closer around the flashing like a smart person would. Previous owners always half-ass things, that's not a mystery, that's just normal house buying. You should have known better than to trust a 30 year old roof without a full inspection.

the_sage16d ago

20 years in my old house and I'm still finding weird stuff from the previous owners. Found a random outlet in the middle of the dining room floor that just went to a light in the basement, made no sense at all. But a weekend to track down a roof leak sounds like a win honestly, some of these old houses hide water damage like a secret. The rust spot on the flashing is exactly the kind of thing that blends in until you get a good rainstorm and then suddenly your drywall is bubbling.