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I noticed a wet spot where the ceiling meets one of the walls in my garage. When I went into the attic, I noticed the wet spot under the insulation as shown in the images below. The insulation is wet to the touch near the spot and appears to be taking water in from up and behind where it's tucked in. I reached my fingers up in there and definitely felt water.

I'm guessing it's a roof leak since it only happens during hard rains (here in Florida). I went up on the roof and felt around, but felt like I was searching for a needle as there was nothing immediately obvious.

Not really sure what to do other than just call an expert. Any advice? Thanks.

Wet spot #1 Wet Spot #2

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  • I suggest pulling the insulation out of there and looking to see where the water is coming from. Could be from the roof, could be the wave vent, could be from a gutter run.
    – Jeff Cates
    Feb 22, 2017 at 22:32
  • I just noticed that there isn't an air space between the top of the insulation and the bottom of the roof sheathing. How is the attic vented? If you have Soffit vents, they are not working. They make "insulation baffles" which you can lay on the insulation to maintain 1-2" of air space over the insulation for "cross ventilation".
    – Lee Sam
    Feb 23, 2017 at 10:34
  • @LeeSam, I should have mentioned that the insulation in the picture is up against an interior room of the house. In the upper right of the second picture, you can see the forward portion of the attic which doesn't have insulation since it's the exterior of the house.
    – Justin Skiles
    Feb 23, 2017 at 12:57
  • Those wet spots indicate water is leaking into the attic...its not just condensation, which good ventilation could remove. Look for leaks above wet spots. It could leak 5-10' above wet spots and run down roof on top of roofing building paper until it finds a spot to seep into attic. Often leaks occur at unusual roof configurations or where roofs, flashing, gutters, etc. terminate.
    – Lee Sam
    Feb 23, 2017 at 18:04
  • Sometimes leaks can be hard to identify one method I have had success with when we could not identify the source was a thermal camera. The thermal camera showed where the leak originated and its path down. Water was running on top of the truss for almost 10'. They have thermal cameras for smart phones now that cost less and you would have a tool to find insulation problems and other funn stuff. FLIR makes the model I bought and I use it for finding hot spots in electrical panels.
    – Ed Beal
    Feb 23, 2017 at 19:58

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