Porch Roof Leak RepairA Small Leak Causes Major DamageA porch roof leak repair is easier to tackle when you notice the first signs of trouble. Early fixes can save you time, money, and prevent major damage to the porch roof beam and potentially damage to the interior of your home. Even a small leak over time can result in big damage when not repaired.Here's a case study of what happens when a leak is undetected for an extended period of time and what repairs were needed so as to give you ideas of how to inspect and repair any porch roof leak you may have. 
That Shouldn't Happen!I was watching a rainstorm out our back door and noticed water overflowing onto the back porch from the top of inside of the beam's metal wrap. You should never expect to find water at this specific location and I knew immediately: "Houston, we have a problem!"
View of where back porch roof and house roof joinWhere was the water coming from and how could it get under the metal beam wrap?
Water overflowed the metal wrapUpon inspecting the area on the house roof where it joins the porch shed roof I discovered a small gap in the siding which was installed 8 years ago. This allowed water to run down the house roof and into that open space. Water then ran down the inside of the siding and collected along the bottom of the beam's metal wrap.In addition to the gap, the roof flashing did not extend to the end of the roof exacerbating the situation. 
I initially tried to caulk the small gap in the siding to determine if this was the causeBecause of the worker's lack of attention to detail during the original house construction, water ran behind the siding unnoticed for eight years.Porch Roof Leak Repair - Assessing the DamageYou could not tell the damage by simply looking at the wrapped beam.
Porch beam with metal wrap intact - looks fine but what lies beneathLike peeling back an onion, we exposed the damage little by little as we removed the metal wrap.I was able to poke through the beam where it meets the house wall and knew the beam would need to be replaced. 
Soft enough to push my finger through the beam - not a good signAs you can see from the photos, most of the beam had deteriorated and we were most thankful it was not a supporting beam. This made replacing it much easier. What you will see is water damage over a period of eight years.
Porch beam shows water damage
Porch beam needs to be replaced
Porch beam with water damageIn order to assess the damage to the sheathing on the roofs, we would need to remove several shingles and siding which we would do after we replaced the beam. Roof Leak Repair - Replace the BeamFirst, we removed a piece of siding and began removing the metal facing to expose the entire beam.
Removing porch siding material to expose beamNext, we began cutting away the old beam and carefully removing it piece by piece.
We built the new beam with 2x10's and 2x4's, fitting them to fit the space. The house structure was not affected by the water damage in any way so attaching the new beam material was fairly easy. 
Installing new porch beamWe then covered the beam with sheathing.
Covering porch beam with sheathingRoof Leak Repair - New Metal Wrap, Flashing, Shingles, and SidingThe next task was to remove a few possibly affected shingles to assess any sheathing issues. Fortunately, the roof sheathing and house sheathing, although a little discolored was deemed to be ok and need not be replaced.Additional flashing was installed and extended to redirect water into the gutter. 
Roof flashing extendedDue to the pandemic, we could not match the color of siding so we chose one that was fairly close. Our intent is to replace the remaining siding pieces to match the new siding at some point in time.New metal was installed over the beam and was cut and bent to fit on site. 
Bending metal to make the beam wrap
Installing new metal beam wrap and sidingPorch Leak Repair - Final NotesWe were most fortunate there was no damage to our home's structure and that the beam was not a supporting beam. Although we will have to replace the siding at some point, we were happy to resolve this issue.
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