Hi all. After some advice please.
12 year old house. A couple of weeks ago, in amongst all this horrendous rain, our bay window started leaking with water coming in from the ceiling (of the actual bay). I drilled a couple of holes to catch all the drips in a bucket.
roofer #1 came out and diagnosed failed sealant and water ingress through the horizontal bit of flashing. He replaced the sealant with a mortar mix. As soon as it started raining again, the leak came back.
Roofer #2 went to town and did the whole bay window roof (new felt, batons, drip trays, used hip flashing that wasn't present before etc). This was after checking the loft and not seeing any ingress from the (false) chimney. He also went round with sealant on any potential gaps (bottom corners of the faux window for example).
A week went by, and no more leaks but we then had loads more rain last night and the bay started leaking again. Roofer came round again and lifted the flashing and showed me that the underside of the tiles, felt etc were bone dry in the bay, but the bricks behind the flashing were wet.
He noted how absolutely sodden the brickwork is across the entire gable end (even after no rain in the night). He's thinking the brickwork is so sodden that water is possibly getting into the void, running down and seeping through the blockwork that is behind the bay window roof.
He is going to have a proper look at the chimney again but has suggested using thompson's water seal across the whole gable end given how sodden and how much of a battering it gets (we're on a corner so there is no protection from wind/rain). He is also considering whether the flashing needs to be chased in further than usual.
I feel like this could be an absolute time and money pit of trying to find the issue particularly if we start any invasive work of removing bricks etc. Is there a genuine hole somewhere that needs to be found (and patched?) Is there a badly installed cavity tray above the bay? Has the weather just been so bad that we need the water seal? I'm hesitant about using the latter as (even it worked) feels like a sticking plaster on a bigger issue? Apparently the seal only works for a few years so don't fancy bearing that ongoing job.
Absolute nightmare!
Cheers
12 year old house. A couple of weeks ago, in amongst all this horrendous rain, our bay window started leaking with water coming in from the ceiling (of the actual bay). I drilled a couple of holes to catch all the drips in a bucket.
roofer #1 came out and diagnosed failed sealant and water ingress through the horizontal bit of flashing. He replaced the sealant with a mortar mix. As soon as it started raining again, the leak came back.
Roofer #2 went to town and did the whole bay window roof (new felt, batons, drip trays, used hip flashing that wasn't present before etc). This was after checking the loft and not seeing any ingress from the (false) chimney. He also went round with sealant on any potential gaps (bottom corners of the faux window for example).
A week went by, and no more leaks but we then had loads more rain last night and the bay started leaking again. Roofer came round again and lifted the flashing and showed me that the underside of the tiles, felt etc were bone dry in the bay, but the bricks behind the flashing were wet.
He noted how absolutely sodden the brickwork is across the entire gable end (even after no rain in the night). He's thinking the brickwork is so sodden that water is possibly getting into the void, running down and seeping through the blockwork that is behind the bay window roof.
He is going to have a proper look at the chimney again but has suggested using thompson's water seal across the whole gable end given how sodden and how much of a battering it gets (we're on a corner so there is no protection from wind/rain). He is also considering whether the flashing needs to be chased in further than usual.
I feel like this could be an absolute time and money pit of trying to find the issue particularly if we start any invasive work of removing bricks etc. Is there a genuine hole somewhere that needs to be found (and patched?) Is there a badly installed cavity tray above the bay? Has the weather just been so bad that we need the water seal? I'm hesitant about using the latter as (even it worked) feels like a sticking plaster on a bigger issue? Apparently the seal only works for a few years so don't fancy bearing that ongoing job.
Absolute nightmare!
Cheers
