I'm looking for ideas on how water is getting in through my roof (near a roof vent). Unfortunately, the attic is only about 10" tall at the point, so I haven't so far been able to get a good look (I've been relying on a camera on a pole). At least the attic access is close!
My best ideas:
- Water (or snow) splashing (or piling up) and getting in through vent (which has no "lid", just an aluminum screen) -- is this possible? How to prevent?
- Leaking around roof vent fasteners -- unlikely since I replaced the vent and the fastener/cement are pretty new and I haven't seen water around the fastener
- Condensation from the exhaust fan dripping within the attic -- is this possible? I would hope not because I'm not sure what I could do about it!
- Condensation from somewhere else in the attic -- hopefully not likely since I'd probably be getting mold -- I will be up in the attic soon to double-check
Only the first one seems plausible to me, but I (so far) haven't been able to catch any water getting in "in the act" (e.g. during a storm).
Are there other common causes of leaks around (fairly new) roof vents? Most info I found was for old or improperly installed vents.
More details, in case they're helpful:
This is all happening in a bathroom. There is a bathroom exhaust fan in the middle of the room and a light fixture a few feet toward the side of the house (directly down the pitch of the roof from the vent). Water is getting into the light fixture. I'm seeing maybe 1 - 2 tbsp of water in the fixture, maybe once or twice a year (presumably during storms, although I haven't witnessed it--also could be related to recent snowfall, which is uncommon where I live).
The exhaust fan connects to a steel tube that has two 90 degree turns and then goes up and ends at a hole in the roof. At the hole in the roof, there's a static roof vent that looks like
this one from Home Depot. There are no other vents in this path from the top of the roof (and I've never seen water "up pitch" from here). Edit: the tube is NOT connected to the roof vent in any way, is this normal?
I actually replaced the roof vent a few years ago because the old one (installed by a roofing company!) wasn't installed correctly (they drove fasteners through the part of the vent that explicitly says not to do that. Prior to my fix, there was a significant (and visible) amount of water getting in during storms, but I haven't witnessed any water (even during storms) get in since I replaced the vent (but I know it's still happening sometimes because water collects in the light fixture). The vent is tucked under shingles and sealed with roofing cement, per the
installation instructions. As far as I'm aware, water could splash up and into the roof vent, but that doesn't seem like it would lead to the amount of water I'm seeing (although I'm just guessing).
One other observation is that the hole in the roof is much larger than the exhaust pipe. I thought for a bathroom exhaust, you usually cut a circular hole that is the size of the pipe, but (for whatever reason) the hole is 1 - 2" bigger in diameter than the exhaust tube. It's still smaller than the 8x10" rectangle this static roof suggests, so I don't see why this would be a problem. Edit to clarify: the exhaust tube is NOT connected to the roof vent. It just sort of ends at the point where the roofing would be. I don't see a particular problem with this, but it wasn't what I (as an uninformed person) would have expected.