It stormed like crazy yesterday afternoon. Storm came out of the north, which I’ve been kind of hoping for because I wanted to see how fixing the north edge of the roof would finally get the front window to stop leaking. For quite some time my assumption has been that the water is exiting through the top of the window but entering up between the roof and the top edge of the siding.
Apparently not. The siding and roofing are now very well sealed but the front window still leaks like a sieve. More than that, the front bedroom window leaks just as badly. This is completely confusing. They’re metal flange windows: They screw to the underlayment and then the siding goes over the metal, there’s lots of caulk at every step, and I simply can’t see any physical way either window could leak. But they both do, about equally badly, implying that I’ve done something wrong in their installation but I can’t imagine what. No way the bedroom addition is leaking from the top of the frame – there’s overlapping metal roofing and a good drip edge. It’s annoying – that window has leaked since I moved in every time the storm comes from the north, which happens twice or three times in a typical monsoon season. I really truly thought I had it fixed. Instead now I have two leakers.
The wash ran a little overnight…
Just a very little, giving me a notion of where the new channel is after last year’s floods changed everything around. We used to have a nice raised island for the 100-yard shooting station but it’s just plain gone now – along with the iron shooting bench which I never did find. I’ve borrowed Ian’s laser rangefinder so in the next few days as the mud settles down I’ll be pounding in new range markers. The 200, 300 and 400-yard markers are still there, of course, but no longer accurate since I set all the target stands back closer to the cliff in May. I’m hoping to find places for the 25 and 100-yard markers that won’t be right in the path of the water every time the wash runs. When there’s a real flood, of course, there’s every chance of losing them. But if I pound rebar a couple of feet deep and then slide PVC over it as the actual marker, that usually survives. Those two big floods last July that tore everything up were really unusual.
Water coming in over the top of your trim boards? Such as pin holes in the caulk along the top edge. And another thought, did you put a drip cap over the windows? I remember the folks’ windows having them, only because Dad was real picky about how we prepped-n-painted them.
Drip caps are about the only thing I don’t have, because I didn’t think I needed them. But considering the large amount of water involved, I can’t believe that would fix the problem. The seams involved are already heavily caulked.
Joel not sure what kind of window you have but I’m assuming vinyl. Is the window leaking at the top or bottom? If it’s the bottom, many vinyl windows have an internal water catch under the “sill” with weep holes on the bottom outside of the siding. Make sure those weep holes aren’t blocked if present. If they are blocked you’ve created a small pan which will fill until it overflows, frequently to the inside.