Why does my metal roof keep leaking around the screws?
Exposed fasteners on metal roofs frequently fail and cause water to leak into the same locations repeatedly. Fixing these recurrent leaks often requires expensive screw replacements or extensive structural repairs, leaving homeowners to face high contractor costs over and over again.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Replacing screws with thicker ones
- 2Using a high quality urethane based sealant or silicone to caulk around every screw
- 3Calling the roofing contractor back to report the ongoing leak
- 4Inspecting brickwork and mortar gaps for alternative points of water ingress
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“water ingress and the state of the roofing, £2.6k later roofing removed back to rafters, refelted, new timbers, new dry verge, removed and replaced old lead with new code5 apron and flashing.”source ↗
“my parents reported water dripping again (same location, near top of the extension roof).”source ↗
“Now I have a leak and they are telling me the screws need to be replaced with "long life" screws. they want $1000 to replace the screws along the dormer where the leak is or $5000 to do the whole roof.”source ↗