Ask anyone who works on roofs across this arc where the leaks live and the answer is the same: rarely in the field, almost always at the junctions and the hardware around it.
- 1 Ridge and exhaust — Where the attic is supposed to breathe out. Sized in 1975 on half this arc.
- 2 The shingle field — The part everyone looks at. The sun works it from above, the attic from below.
- 3 The valley — Every afternoon’s rain, funnelled into one seam.
- 4 Wall flashing — Where the garage roof meets the house. Rebuilt metal outlives the shingles; caulk does not.
- 5 The vent boot — A rubber collar on a faster clock than the roof around it. The arc’s most common leak.
- 6 Eaves, drip edge and soffit intake — The hardware salt reaches first, and the intake the attic breathes through.
The six
- Miles from the waterMiles from the water: how distance decides what fails
- The vent boot clockThe vent boot: the small part on a fast clock
- Aging in wavesRoofs that age in waves
- What the tear-off findsWhat the tear-off finds
- Cooked from both sidesCooked from both sides
- The junction problemThe junction problem: where roofs actually leak
What this arc does to a roof
An arc that runs from salt air to inland heat, so the same house fails at its hardware near the coast and at its attic forty miles in. A sun that works the covering from above while the attic works it from below. A daily summer rain that tests every seam on a schedule. And a housing stock built in waves, whose roofs come due together, street by street. Most of what ends a roof here traces back to one of those.