Vancouver Skylight Repairs on Tile Roof

The big skylight with the major leak was still actively leaking on the south side. Note fresh wet 1x4 wood

A close up view shows how the containment lip on the pan flashing is completely compressed and has no withholding integrity remaining. It only takes a small amount of debris in the pan flashing to divert the water sideways and over the compressed metal lip

The north side of the big skylight had evidence of past leakage but nothing as “fresh” as what we found on the south side

This close up shows the caulking detail we apply to all topside corners of each skylight curb

We then moved north to the northern most skylight and found more fresh wet wood. Again more on the south side then on the North

This is typical to most skylight pan flashings we disassemble around the Lower Mainland – can you believe the original installed purposefully pinned down the flashing edge using a nail. I think they thought they were holding the pan in place (which the tiles will do any ways) but what they really were doing was starting a leak off by compressing the containment lip. We pull these nails and straighten the containment lip in every case

Typical pan flashing side which has been cleaned, straightened and caulked and is now ready for tile reassembly

More fresh wet wood on the 3rd skylight (southern most skylight on east roof face). This time the wetness/active leak is on the North side

On the south side of the same skylight we have we call “sliver” tiles. See how they almost fully block the pan flashing and create opportunities for debris dams to begin? I dislike sliver tiles. I much prefer an open pan flashing so water can freely flow and flush any debris away from the pan flashing. These particular sliver tiles were unfortunately positioned so the weight of the tile sat right on top of the edge of the pan flashing. It was destined to get compressed over time and resultantly fail. I get rid of sliver tiles and replace with lead cover pieces.

Sliver tiles removed and see the wet wood! The 1x4 wood is wetter then the wood we found on your big skylight. So this one was leaking dramatically. It just hadn’t eroded or worn thought the cardboard underlayment you have. Obviously that would have just been a matter of time.

South facing skylight opened up. ore fresh wet wood on the west side bottom slat

Here is how we use the lead cover strips on the skylight with the sliver pieces in photo 6549. See how open the pan flashing now.... and yet 100% water proof. We have had nothing but success using this strategy. I even wrote a blog about it. See “A better detail” Nov 21, 2013 http://www.crucialroofservices.com/blog/category/the-daily-climb-blog/page/2/

We also did it on the south side one

Here’s the lone lower roof skylight. Check out the moss build up on the south side

Funny... the leak we found to be active was on the north side

The north side wasn’t quite so bad. Just some evidence of past over flowing