Finding the leak on a Nanticoke house
Water rarely drips straight down from where it enters. It runs along rafters, follows the top of a wall or soaks across the attic floor before it shows up as a stain. On Nanticoke's older homes, with their steep gables, dormers and back additions, that can put the stain several feet from the actual problem. So a good repair starts with tracing it: from the ceiling stain up into the attic when we can get in, then onto the roof to find where the water is actually getting in.
On the city's coal-era houses, the source is usually one of these:
- The low-slope back roof. Porches and kitchen additions in Nanticoke often have roofs that are nearly flat, covered in roll roofing and tar. The leak tends to start where that roof meets the main wall. When patching no longer holds, we replace the section with EPDM rubber and new flashing up the wall.
- Chimney flashing that has been patched many times, often with tar that cracked after a few winters.
- Dormer walls where step flashing has rusted through.
- Double-block seams at the party line, especially where the two halves were roofed at different times.
- Cracked pipe boots and loose vent flashing.
River weather and winter damage
Nanticoke sits on the Susquehanna at the southwest end of the Wyoming Valley, and the river keeps things damp. Shaded slopes grow moss and algae. Moss creeps under shingle edges, holds water and lifts the tabs until rain gets underneath. On a roof that's otherwise sound, we replace the damaged shingles and address the growth. A pressure washer will do more harm than good, because it strips granules off the shingles.
Winter brings roughly 45 inches of snow in an average year, plus regular thaws and refreezes. Many older Nanticoke homes have little or no attic ventilation, so heat collects under the roof and melts snow from below. The meltwater refreezes at the eaves as an ice dam, and water backs up under the shingles. We repair the damaged eave, and we'll tell you straight whether the attic is part of the problem, because patching the eave without fixing a hot attic just resets the clock. Our roof ventilation work handles that.
Nanticoke also sits above old mine workings. If we see a wavy ridge or a joint that's pulled apart, we'll point it out, because shifting can crack flashing. Structural questions go to an engineer. After wind or hail, we'll take photos of the damage and can meet your adjuster on site. Our storm damage repair page has the details.
Straight talk: patch it or replace it
If a single flashing, one back-porch roof or a few damaged shingles are causing the trouble and the rest of the roof has life in it, you need a repair, and we'll quote a repair. When the shingles are curling and dropping granules on every slope, the deck feels soft in more than one place, or you're on your third or fourth patch, the math changes. At that point, a roof replacement usually costs less than chasing leaks for years. We'll show you the photos and let you decide.
For permits, the City of Nanticoke's Code Enforcement department covers homes in the city, and the neighboring townships handle their own. Some residential repair work is exempt under the UCC, so we check what your repair needs before starting and file a permit when one is required.
Find out more on our roof repair page. If the roof is getting old, the Instant Roof Quote gives you a replacement number to compare.
More detail on how we handle this work anywhere we serve: Roof Repair. Everything we do in Nanticoke: roofing in Nanticoke, PA.
