What's causing that leak in my roof/ceiling?

[leadcounsel]

If you guessed a bullet hole, you are correct!!!

Have some water damage in my ceiling which I noticed back in 2011 and hired a general handyman to take care of a few things, including patching that. Well, he was unreliable but had reported he sealed the suspect area (popped out nail). I can do most stuff myself, it's often just a matter of time/schedule.

Last week I heard a drip in the same room during a recent rain storm. Roof is only 6 years old, house was built in 2007.

Today was a nice day, so I climbed up there and expected to find a popped nail, or a damaged shingle.

Sure enough, a nice .30 caliber sized hole, right through the shingle and OSB. Given the water damage going back a couple years, I'd say this dates back a few years. My guess is just a NY Eve celebratory angled handgun or rifle shot, a quarter mile away or something along those lines. Had enough punch to go through the roof, but not the ceiling (as far as I can tell).

My attic has terribly difficult access, but after fighting with the ladder and being a gymnast to get into the attic and into the small area to patch the hole... I used some liquid nails to cement some roofing felt against the inside of the hole, and a piece of 1x over that, then sealed it good with some liquid roofing tar... then used the liquid roofing tar to fill the hole and then adhere a piece of roofing paper to the exterior of the hole. Then a nice smooth liberal coating of roofing tar over the paper. Should work for a decade or so, until a new roof is needed.

I spent some time digging through the blown insulation to find the bullet but no luck. I had expected to quickly find a bullet, but the blown insulation is about 2' deep in that area, and it's like finding a penny in a snowbank. Sprayed the ants that had made a nest in the moldy ceiling area...

Between the discomfort of balancing on beams, and breathing in hot insulation dust, and bug spray, I aborted my search of the bullet... I was curious, but not that curious.

I live in a nice house in a middle class small-ish city, plagued with typical modern problems - poverty, drugs, desperation... but it also has just normal hard working middle class folks.

I never would have expected a bullet hole in my roof though.

If I garner more ambition I may go back up there to do a more thorough investigation for the bullet, it may have angled one way or the other...

 

[ChaoSS]

Every 4th of July and New Years eve, just about every house in the neighborhood starts firing off guns, and once it starts dying down, the cops start driving through the neighborhood, pretending to look for those doing it. I'm wondering how long until my house has a bullet hole in it. Fortunately, I think most of it is straight up into the air, and a falling bullet isn't too terribly dangerous.

 

[heeler]

During the New Year holiday of 2001 I went out of town and upon returning I walked into my bedroom and before flipping on the light I noticed something on my carpet right at the foot of my bed.
It was sheetrock from my ceiling and imbedded in the carpet was a fmj bullet of what I think was a 9mm.
Patched the roof and moved on.
Idiots!!
And to think that bullet was just feet from where my body slept nightly.

 

[ChaoSS]

Makes me wonder what the police would do if you were to set up cameras in your vehicle and document all the people shooting off guns, their addresses, etc.

Probably a lot of nothing, but it might be worth something.

 

[Lex Luthier]

Minneapolis supposedly has some type of an alert system that triggers when something as loud as a gunshot goes off. It triangulates the source and the cops come rolling. Our neighborhood isn't so bad, but the hood isn't that far away and I can hear pops once in a while that are NOT M80s. I do not know how effective the system is, but I do know the cops take a while to be anywhere sometimes.

 

[Sav .250]

Leaks and bullet holes in the roof give the best of use pause to wonder.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

Fortunately, I think most of it is straight up into the air, and a falling bullet isn't too terribly dangerous.

Ummmm....... If it'll go through a roof, I suspect it is slightly dangerous and could do some harm if it hits a person.

 

[JustinJ]

Ummmm....... If it'll go through a roof, I suspect it is slightly dangerous and could do some harm if it hits a person.

To penetrate a roof the bullet must have been shot at an angle. A bullet shot relatively straight up will reach it's apex and then never exceed terminal velocity as it falls, which is not enough to penetrate a roof. It probably wouldn't feel good if such a bullet hit somebody in the head but they would easily survive.

 

[22-rimfire]

That's pretty interesting. At least it was fairly easy to find the actual starting point of the leak and a bit of tar would fix. Leaks are sometimes very difficult to trace back to their origination point.

Holes.... bullet holes.... very unusual. Did you own the house when the new roof was installed?

 

[berettaprofessor]

What makes you think it was a bullet? This is a lot of speculation for a hole in the roof. It goes through shingles and plywood but not insulation?

 

[desidog]

That looks odd to me, in that it appears to be a round hole, perpendicular to your asphalt roofing...which should have a slope to it. I would be surprised if a bullet lobbed up a mile away would still be stabilized, by that point it would impact with a keyhole shape.

I'd say it isn't a bullet, until you find a bullet... know any bars with bouncers with a magic wand or metal detector?

 

[leadcounsel]

That's pretty interesting. At least it was fairly easy to find the actual starting point of the leak and a bit of tar would fix. Leaks are sometimes very difficult to trace back to their origination point.

That's what I thought! How lucky for me that it was so easy to find and fix. I was worried it would be some obscure leak and I'd be patching the roof all day!

That looks odd to me, in that it appears to be a round hole, perpendicular to your asphalt roofing...which should have a slope to it. I would be surprised if a bullet lobbed up a mile away would still be stabilized, by that point it would impact with a keyhole shape.

The slope of the roof is about 45%. The hold was basically 90% with 45%, so it appears to have come in at an angle. I have no idea where the bullet is... perhaps the hole was discovered by the renter and the bullet taken, but the hole never patched. Or maybe I just didn't give a throughout enough search. We're talking about a 10' feet possible area depending on whether it came from the right angle, left angle, straight on, etc. There's 2' deep of blown insulation. Maybe it went through and hit a stud/truss, who knows, but conditions weren't such that I wanted to continue the search - again, it was miserable and cramped, and I had already spent 20 minutes crawling in, patching, and some cursory searching... that was enough for my tastes...

The only other reasonable solution is that someone took a drill and drilled a hole there. That is 'possible' that the nefarious tenants - maybe evicted, would do that. They did a few other small nefarious things that 'vandalized' the home, but nothing significant, when they left.

 

[desidog]

The only other reasonable solution is that someone took a drill and drilled a hole there.

Yup, Dish Network...

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

When I had the vinyl installed on our house the contractor found a 30 cal fmj slug stuck in the fascia on the south side. Just over our bedroom window...

 

[Lonestar49]

They, small ones, come down every day

...

Meteor strike.. they carry far more speed than a falling bullet, is my guess, as many tiny fragments get thru the atmosphere every day, IIRC

What are the odds..? This coming rainy season, your patch work will be tested



Ls

 

[ball3006]

Fill the hole with roof patch, the balck tar kind. Then take a small piece of roof felt, coat with roof patch and slide under the shingle covering the hole. Then put a small dab in the hole in the shingle. Sprinkle some sand on the hole and you are good to go.....chris3

 

[labhound]

Quick fix is to just fill the hole with good construction adhesive. All you need is a caulking gun and a tube of the adhesive.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

To penetrate a roof the bullet must have been shot at an angle. A bullet shot relatively straight up will reach it's apex and then never exceed terminal velocity as it falls, which is not enough to penetrate a roof.

Oh yeah..... That's true.

 

[red rick]

A 9 year old boy was killed July 4th about 10 miles from me by a bullet shot into the air, then falling hitting him in the head.

The police are really working hard trying to find the shooter. Some Officers are even going door to door asking questions on their own time. The last I heard they have been to 1000 houses, but still no leads.

 

[CSC_Saint]

A rifle bullet, even only going terminal velocity, can do serious damage to someone. I had an Iraqi show up at our COP with a gunshot wound going into his shoulder nearly straight down into his chest and lungs. He had been hit by celebratory fire from a soccer game a mile or two down the road. They guy was just out getting water from his well, stepped outside, and wham, on the way to dead.

 

[doc2rn]

Burning debris from the shuttle?

 

[ChaoSS]

Just to be clear, a bullet fired nearly straight up into the air is not particularly dangerous when coming back down. A bullet fired up at an angle can remain stabilized in flight and travel a mile, two miles, whatever, and still have sideways momentum, plus the terminal velocity of a stabilized bullet is higher, so in that case it very well can kill a person.

Which means that the guys firing off rounds a mile from you are much more dangerous to you than the guys firing off rounds just down the street.


Long story short, don't shoot your guns off like that, and keep your kids inside when that sort of thing is going on in the area.

 

[Potatohead]

Every 4th of July and New Years eve, just about every house in the neighborhood starts firing off guns, and once it starts dying down, the cops start driving through the neighborhood, pretending to look for those doing it. I'm wondering how long until my house has a bullet hole in it. Fortunately, I think most of it is straight up into the air, and a falling bullet isn't too terribly dangerous.

Where do you live, Baghdad?

 

[MattShlock]

When I was a kid another kid from the area was trespassing around our property. One story up, I put aside my Star Trek action figures and dropped a depth-charge (rolled an empty wooden spool of thread down the multiple steps of the window sill) and nailed him. The bobbin bounced off his noggin and John crashed to the ground like a whole tree had fallen on him. He lay there, balled up, balling his caught-red-handed eyes out. Of course he didn't have a mark on him...

I bring this up only because this all reminded me of that, I was so surprised I hit him, and yet I enjoy it so still to this day.

 

[osprey176]

Several years ago I climbed up on my roof to put up Christmas lights.I saw something that looked odd,and found a 38 caliber slug that had penetrated one shingle,then stopped at the second.No leaks,but still made me think.I melted it down with my range lead.