A leak shows up as a stain on a ceiling, but that stain is almost never under the actual hole. Water enters high, travels along the framing, and drops somewhere else. Orian Construction & Roofing traces leaks back to the source on roofs across Los Angeles County, then seals the entry point so the drip does not come back.
Roof leak detection is the work of tracing water back from where you see it to where it enters the roof. The repair itself is usually small. The skill is in the tracing, because water is stubborn about hiding its path. It can run several feet along a rafter or across the top of a ceiling before it finds a low spot and drips through. Aim a repair at the stain and you fix nothing.
This is the single most common mistake we get called to correct. A homeowner, or a handyman, sees a wet spot, seals the roof directly above it, and the drip stops for a season because the rain was light. Then a real storm comes and the leak is right back, because the true opening was never touched. When you see water dripping from a ceiling, the entry point is the thing to chase, and that is what we do first.
Leak detection pairs naturally with a written roof inspection, and once we have found the source, the fix falls under our roof repair work. If the leak followed a storm, our storm damage page covers the claims side.
Understanding why leaks are tricky explains why a careful process beats a quick patch. A few things conspire to move the water away from its source.
It follows the path of least resistance along framing and decking, so the drip inside can be far from the opening outside.
Materials soak up water before it shows, so by the time a ceiling stains, water has been getting in for a while and has spread.
On a tile roof the leak is usually in the felt beneath the tile, which you cannot see without lifting the tile to look.
Sometimes it is not one leak but two or three minor ones adding up, which is why we check the whole roof rather than stopping at the first find.
After years of tracing leaks, the same handful of sources come up again and again. Knowing them helps us work efficiently once we are on your roof.
The metal around chimneys, walls, and vents takes the most movement. Loose or rusted flashing is behind a large share of the leaks we find.
Flashing repair →On tile roofs, the felt beneath the tile wears out and lets water through while the tile above still looks fine. See tile roof repair.
Tile repair →Where roof planes meet and where pipes, skylights, and vents pass through. These transitions collect water and debris and open up over time.
Skylight work →We work from the inside out and the outside in until the two meet at the real opening. It is a process, not a lucky guess, and it is the reason our repairs hold.
Where we can access it, we look at the underside of the deck for wet framing and staining, which points us up the slope toward the entry.
We walk the roof above that area and check the flashing, tiles, seams, and penetrations in the likely zone.
When the source is not obvious, we run water on the roof in a controlled way, section by section, until the leak reappears inside and gives itself away.
Once we are certain of the source, we make the repair and waterproof the area so the same spot sheds water instead of soaking it up.
Family owned and based on Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks. A leak fixed at the source stays fixed, and that is the only way we do it.
Detection finds the problem. Waterproofing is how we close it. Depending on where the leak is, that can mean rebuilding the flashing with fresh metal, replacing a run of worn underlayment under tile, resealing a penetration, or coating a flat roof section that has lost its water resistance. The right method depends on the roof and the source, and we match it rather than reaching for the same tube of sealant every time.
On flat and low-slope roofs, waterproofing often means addressing drainage as well, because standing water is a leak waiting to happen. Our flat roof work covers the membrane and drainage side. And on any roof, keeping up with regular roof maintenance is the surest way to avoid the next leak, since most of them start at spots that a yearly check would have caught.
We trace and seal leaks for homes and businesses across the county from our shop on Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks. A few of the areas we serve:
Tell us where you are seeing water and we will come out, find the real source, and give you a written estimate to seal it.