Roof Flashing Repair in Alpharetta, GA

If you have a leak that other contractors haven't been able to solve, or one that keeps coming back despite repeated caulking, there's a very good chance flashing is the issue. Flashing failure accounts for a disproportionate share of roof leaks — it's the most likely culprit at any point where your roof surface meets a vertical element: a chimney, a dormer wall, where a lower porch roof meets a two-story wall, around skylights. When flashing fails, it looks like a roof problem. Caulk over it and it looks solved for about a year before water finds its way back through the same gap.

A Real Job from Manning on the Lake — Alpharetta

A 4,500 sq ft traditional home in Manning on the Lake, built in 1997. Brick exterior, two chimneys, a rear sunroom addition with a low-slope shed roof that butted up against the main two-story back wall.

Water showing up behind the drywall in the sunroom along the wall where it met the main house. It had been happening intermittently for three years. A previous contractor had caulked the roof-to-wall transition twice. Each fix held for a season or two before the staining came back.

When we pulled back the shingles on the low-slope shed roof at the wall transition, we found that the original installation had used a single-piece bent flashing with caulk — essentially one strip of metal bent at 90 degrees and sealed in place. This is a common shortcut and it works until thermal movement and age cause the sealant to fail. There was no counter flashing embedded in the mortar joint of the brick wall above. The caulk fixes had been applied over the failed original system, which just delayed the inevitable.

Removed the old single-piece flashing entirely. Installed proper step flashing woven with the shingles on the shed roof surface, then cut reglets into the brick mortar joints and installed counter flashing that wedges into those reglets and laps over the step flashing below. Sealed with elastomeric roofing sealant rated for flashing applications. Two-layer protection — if one layer ever gets moisture behind it, the other catches it.

The homeowner went through two full Georgia rainy seasons — including a period in November that dropped nearly eight inches of rain in Alpharetta in two weeks — with zero recurrence. That's the difference between a proper flashing system and caulk over a failed one.

Why Flashing Keeps Failing When Done Wrong

Alpharetta's temperature range — cold enough in January to see occasional ice, hot enough in July to fry an egg on dark shingles — creates significant thermal cycling that metal flashing has to accommodate. A single-piece caulked assembly can't do that. The sealant cracks and lifts within a few seasons. Proper two-piece step-and-counter flashing systems are designed to move independently, which is why they don't fail the same way.

The homes most likely to have flashing problems are those built in the 1990s and early 2000s in Alpharetta's larger subdivisions — Manning, Windward, Ellard, Devonshire — where crews were moving fast. Some of those homes have been through two or three rounds of caulked "repairs" on the same joints. If that sounds familiar, the fix isn't more caulk — it's proper flashing.

For full context on our repair services, see our main services page. For storm-related flashing damage, check our storm restoration page.

Recurring leak you can't seem to fix? Call (678) 766-9646 — we'll find the actual source.