Is tarping a good solution if the whole house has leaks?

[rainprobs]

Hello there. It's raining pretty hard again in my country and my house is full of leaks. So much so that it floods inside the whole house and I can't even find a dry place to sleep. Even my bed is wet. There are a lot of holes in the roof, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the water keeps coming in even though I plugged the holes I've seen with sealant.

I live in a small home, no rooms and just a bath. The roof is slanted to the right, and the root of all my problems is that someone had the bright idea to put the gutter inside the house, so as not to upset the neighbor. Said neighbor has a tree right beside us and leaves fall down like crazy to our roof.

I really want to hire a professional to get the roof fixed, but for reasons of poverty, I can't. I'm thinking of putting over a tarp on the roof, but since the gutter is inside the house, I don't know how that'll factor into the equation.

Is tarping really effective? I bought a tarp that's dark green and draped it over the roof, weeks later it was destroyed by rats or cats.

Any opinions and suggestions would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[catlad]

A tarp will only be a short term solution, the gutter inside the house is a very bad idea if you could post a few pictures people may be able to help.

 

[ladylola]

If you have a tree that close to the house and seemingly overhanging the gutter the first thing I'd look at is if the gutter is blocked with leaves and such.

 

[tombodge]

Puts my roofing problems into perspective.

Unfortunately I don't know how to help but wish you luck

 

[rainprobs]

A tarp will only be a short term solution, the gutter inside the house is a very bad idea if you could post a few pictures people may be able to help.

Yes, the gutter inside the house is a very bad idea and I hope no other poor soul thinks of doing this. I can't take any pictures right now, I'll try, but the image is approximately what the house looks like when viewed from the front.

If you have a tree that close to the house and seemingly overhanging the gutter the first thing I'd look at is if the gutter is blocked with leaves and such.

I went up a few days ago and you're right, I found a lot of leaves in the gutter. Not only that, I found cat poo and fruit from the tree. Also, do you have any idea how dirt got into the gutter? There's quite a bit of layer of dirt, like from the ground, that's coating the gutter's inside. I have a suspicion that it's rat dirt, but I hope not, because I got myself dirty cleaning that.

Unfortunately, when the rain came again, it still poured inside our house.

Puts my roofing problems into perspective.

Unfortunately I don't know how to help but wish you luck

Thank you very much, I do hope luck comes my way.

 

[rainprobs]

If I do get the chance to fix the roof, what do you people think should I do? For the following statements, please see the image above.

1. I could either get the roof higher up, but this means I have to lift the whole roof, put concrete to make the roof even with the wall on the right side. Or
2. I could destroy the upper part of the right wall, extend the roof, move the gutter a bit, and that would be that.

What's more feasible factoring time and cost?

 

[catlad]

Why does the rain water flow towards the wall? its a foolish design, my advice would be to take the roof off and pitch it the other way.

 

[ladylola]

I went up a few days ago and you're right, I found a lot of leaves in the gutter. Not only that, I found cat poo and fruit from the tree. Also, do you have any idea how dirt got into the gutter? There's quite a bit of layer of dirt, like from the ground, that's coating the gutter's inside. I have a suspicion that it's rat dirt, but I hope not, because I got myself dirty cleaning that.
.

How does dirt get up there? Magic! No seriously dirt can be wind blown, carried by rain or the result of leaves etc. decomposing after falling and as you have also noticed droppings from birds and animals.
Best course of action may very well depend on finances. Firstly what is the gutter constructed with? That may very well be damaged , torn or plain badly constructed. Repair or replacement may do the job.
However, as others have said it's poor design of a roof. Don't feel too bad about it though as we have thousands of roofs built this way over here too. Maybe removing the parapet wall and continuing the roof slope would be the best course of action in the long term. Considering water cause so much damage I'll never understand how anyone can even think of channeling through the inside of a building .