Roofing Repair and Carpenter Ants

    I went out on a service call to repair a leaky roof.  The owner noticed some water in his closet and water stains on the wall.  Upon inspecting the roof, I found a roof valley running into a wall.  The shingles were older three tab roofing that was getting near the end of their life.  The step flashing was rusty and pretty well deteriorated on one side of the valley. The other side of the valley had been recently repaired and had new shingles and step flashing.

     The owner told me he had purchased the house about a year ago and a roofer had done some repairs and given him a roof certification.  I assumed the leak was coming from the older portion of the roof and went to work stripping off the damaged roofing, removed the siding and step shingles and  worked my way down toward the gutters.  The roof had been installed over an older roof that was really in bad shape.  It made it very difficult to see clearly where the roof was leaking.  I removed a 3 ft. wide path of roofing and found some rot at the gutter and replaced  a couple of boards. 

     Next I glued down some 30 lb. felt with asphalt emulsion and started weaving in the new shingles and new step flashing working my way up the wall toward the valley.  When I got to the valley, as added insurance against leaks, I  put asphalt emulsion under every shingle.  I felt pretty confident that the roof would be impervious to leaks; at least in this area.   It was time to clean up, load up my ladders and tools and call it a day.   It was perfect timing, because it was starting to sprinkle.  It rained hard for two days and then my phone rang.

    Bummer, the closet still had water coming in.  I dropped what I was working on and jumped in my truck to go over and check it out.  I really hate it when things like this happen.  Sure enough the plywood under the carpet was wet. 

    I went up in the attic to see if I could see exactly where the leak was and it appeared to be coming in from the sidewall, just up from where I had done all of my repairs.  I picked up some insulation to see how wet things might be and the whole area underneath, looked like a pile of sawdust or dirt.  I poked at it and the pile began wiggling and moving.  Ants swarmed out and began repairing the damage to their nest.  I broke the bad news to the owner, and let him know I would return the next morning.

     The next day I went up on the roof and made more repairs, this time replacing the roofing and flashing that I had assumed to be good.  I found a missing piece of step flashing 6" above where I had stopped two days before.  The lesson for me is to never assume that a previous repair was done correctly. Attending Hard Knocks University is never fun and a few hours of warranty work, doesn't help pay the bills. 

     I next removed the siding below the roof line to figure out where all of these ants were coming from.  The siding was old and brittle, so it was tedious and careful work. 

     Underneath was a super highway of ant traffic.  They had eaten all of the sheathing, including the asphalt emulsion face.  The picture at left is insect damage.  I did not remove any of the sheathing, they ate it all and built their nest from the digested material.

     I removed more siding and the insulation and cut the sheathing back to the studs.  The whole colony began to rain down on me and I knew the meaning of the children's poem.  "I have ants in my pants, and I do the boogie dance!"

     Fortunately, the ants all shook off, with only a few bites.  (Carpenter ant bites are not very painful )  I did have that feeling that bugs were crawling on my skin for a while.

    I removed the siding below this area down to the concrete porch and found where the ants were coming in from the ground.  The slab, abutted the poured concrete foundation and the ants were coming in between the small space of the expansion crack.  After removing all of the ants and nest materials, I called it a day.

     I started the next day by pouring a gallon of Black Guard Ant and Insect Killer  into the crack, it all drained rapidly into the space.  Next I replaced the affected lumber and added blocking.  I treated all exposed spaces and wood with Copper based 'Termin 8 to block any future infestation, and then sprayed everything down with insecticide. 

     Now it was time to put everything back together.  New Insulation and sheathing, then carefully putting the brittle siding back.  Some of the siding had to be glued back together.  It was a combed vertical face tongue and groove fir siding that would have been next to impossible to find, but it all went back together nicely.  I left thinking about that scripture, "Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth."  Just change the verse to, "Behold how great a matter a little drop causeth."  Fortunately it was found before the damage was severe.