I don't need rubber boots---I need hip-waders---("Underoos Redux")

     Here is some more awesome stuff about pipe flashings on your roof. 

     That sounds about as exciting as getting a root canal, donating bone marrow or getting a colonoscopy doesn't it?  You've got to be a home inspector to actually find some of this stuff---"interesting."  Perhaps that "look" my Sweetie gives me, when I call her into my office to look at my most recent, unbelievable find, is accurate---you know the one where her eyes roll into the back of her head and she looks like she is having heart burn? (Not the look that makes you remember where the bedroom is.)

     Anyway, I did a blog a while back about pipe flashings and how it got my underoos all in a bunch.  These are even better----new and improved bunched-up-underoos.  Most of these pipe flashings have the size of the pipe they go with stamped right on them.  This one is stamped 3" and is installed on a two inch pipe---leaving plenty of room for rain and vermin to enter the roof/attic.

    This next picture shows a flashing that looks good, but is also not the right size for the pipe.  The pipe is 1-1/2" galvanized pipe which is almost exactly the same size diameter as the opening of the flashing for a 2" pipe.  This pipe leaked enough over time to ruin the ceiling below.  It seems impossible to believe, even to me, that the pipe could "collect" enough rain to actually amount to anything---yet it can---and it did.

      In the other blog I made a case for using the longer lasting lead-type flashings---especially on these roofs with longer lasting types of shingles.  The idea being, that it would be nice if the flashings lasted at least as long as the roof surface.  This next picture is of a roof with shingles that have about a 30 year life and one can see the lead flashings of the underlying layer.  When the new roof was added, instead removing the lead flashings and re-installing them with the new roof, rubber boot type flashings were installed on top of the lead flashings.  These flashings will last half as long as the roof and maybe even less the way they are stretched to the maximum just to get them over the lead flashings.

     It reminds me of those "ugly" stretch boots we were "forced" to wear over our good shoes when we were kids.  They were so "un-cool."

Charles Buell 

     PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed) all  pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.