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Home/Service Areas/Louisiana/Harahan/Roof Flashing Repair

Roof Flashing Repair in Harahan, LA

Big Easy Roofing repairs flashing across Harahan and east bank Jefferson Parish. Flashing is where the roof meets something that is not the roof, which makes it the most common place water gets in and the easiest place for a cheap repair to look finished while solving nothing.

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$350 to $1,200Estimated flashing repair
Shape, not sealantHow a flashing actually works
Most commonSingle entry point for water
Written scopeBefore anything is opened up

Harahan flashing repair at a glance

Flashing is the metal that carries water across the joint where the roof meets a wall, a chimney, a valley or a pipe. It works by shape, by overlapping in the direction water travels. Sealant is a secondary defence on top of that shape, and when it becomes the primary one the repair has a shelf life measured in months.

It is a joint, not a product

Where two trades meet

Flashing sits between roofing and whatever it abuts, so it gets blamed on the wall, the chimney or the cladding as often as on the roof. That ambiguity is why it goes unrepaired longer than anything else on a roof.

Estimated flashing repair

$350 to $1,200

Driven by the length of the run, access, and whether the covering has to be lifted to get the new flashing properly underneath it. Every figure here is an estimate, not a quote.

Sealant alone is a repeat visit

Months, not years

A bead of sealant over a flashing that has lifted, shortened or corroded hides the symptom for one season. In this heat it then moves, cracks and lets water back into the same joint. The detail has to shed water without it.

The most common single entry point

On roofs in this climate

Coverings here rarely fail across the open field. The joints do, and flashing is the largest category of joint on most roofs, which is why it is where leak tracing starts.

Sometimes the roof is not the problem

And we will say so

Where water is getting in through failed masonry, a cracked chimney crown or the cladding above a flashing, new flashing will not stop it. That is a different trade and we will tell you rather than sell you roofing for it.

The permit route is unchanged

City or parish, by address

Inside the city limits the City of Harahan covers the permanent work; in River Ridge or Elmwood, which share postal code 70123, Jefferson Parish does. The boundary decides it, not the address.

Every figure on this page is an estimate, not a quote, and is subject to Big Easy Roofing sign off. Cost and timescale depend on size, pitch, access, weather, materials and whatever is found once work starts, so call Big Easy Roofing on (504) 800-8196 and we will come out and give you an estimate for your own roof.

Every figure on this page is an estimate, not a quote, and is subject to Big Easy Roofing sign off. Call Big Easy Roofing on (504) 800-8196 about flashing on a Harahan roof.

Five kinds of flashing, and how each one fails

Flashing is not one thing. Five types do five different jobs and they fail in different ways, which matters because the right repair for one is the wrong repair for another. This is the short list a flashing inspection actually works through.

TypeWhere it sitsHow it fails hereUsual repair
Step flashingWhere a slope meets a vertical wallLifts, or was installed too short, so water gets behind itRebuilt piece by piece, woven into the covering
Counter flashingOver step flashing, into the wallPulls out of the mortar joint as the building movesRe-let into the joint, not sealed over
Chimney flashingAll four sides of a chimneyThe back pan and the cricket go first, because that is where water collectsPan and cricket replaced, not patched
Valley flashingWhere two slopes meetWears through where the most water concentrates, or opens at the seamMetal replaced along the run
Penetration flashingPipes, vents, anything through the deckThe collar perishes in this sun, often within ten yearsBoot or collar replaced outright

Every figure is an estimate and none of it is a quote. The common thread is that four of these five are repaired by replacing metal, not by adding sealant to metal that has already failed.

Why the cheap flashing repair keeps coming back

Almost every flashing we rebuild has been sealed at least once already. It is the single most common repeat repair in this trade, and the reason is not laziness. It is that sealing looks like a fix, costs very little and works for exactly long enough that nobody connects the return of the leak to it.

Sealant is a consumable, flashing is a detail

Different lifespans

Metal correctly lapped in the direction water travels keeps working for as long as the metal lasts. Sealant is a material with a service life that is considerably shorter, and shorter again in this heat. Using the second to do the job of the first is a scheduling decision, not a repair.

The clue is that it comes back in the same place

Every year or two

A leak that returns to the same joint after each repair has almost always been sealed rather than rebuilt. That pattern is worth telling us about, because it narrows the diagnosis before anybody is on the roof.

Where it is genuinely not our trade

Masonry and cladding

A cracked chimney crown, failed mortar joints or water tracking down behind cladding will defeat new flashing. We will tell you that is what you have and what kind of trade fixes it, rather than fitting roofing to a problem above it.

The permit rule still applies to the work

R.S. 37:3737(I)

Louisiana requires any municipality or parish that issues construction permits to permit and inspect roof construction and reroofing. Whether a given flashing repair falls under it is a question for the office that covers the address, on (504) 737-6765 inside the city limits.

When sealant is the right answer

As a secondary defence on top of a sound detail, which is what it is designed for. And as a deliberate temporary measure to get a building through weather while a proper repair is scoped, which is honest as long as everybody knows that is what it is.

What it is not is a way of making a flashing that has lifted, shortened or corroded behave as though it had not. We will use it for the first two and tell you plainly when we are doing the second.

If you do not know it is the flashing yet

Then this is not the page you need first. Water shows up a long way from where it gets in, so the joint you can see is not necessarily the one that failed. Leak detection traces it back before anybody prices a repair.

And if the flashings are sound but ageing, catching them on a schedule is considerably cheaper than catching them after. That is what maintenance is for.

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What this climate does to a flashing joint

Harahan sits on the east bank of the Mississippi in Jefferson Parish, hot and humid for most of the year. A flashing joint is two materials that expand at different rates, working against each other every day the sun is out, which is most of them.

Daily movement is the whole mechanism

Metal and masonry, or metal and a covering, heat and cool at different rates. The joint between them moves microscopically every day, and that movement is what works counter flashing out of a mortar joint and works sealant loose from both faces.

It is also why a repair that relies on adhesion is fighting the building, and a repair that relies on overlap is not.

Ultraviolet light finishes what heat starts

Sealants and boot collars degrade under sustained sun much faster than the manufacturer test conditions suggest. Pipe boot collars in particular are often the first thing to fail on an otherwise healthy roof here, sometimes well inside ten years.

That is not a defect in the roof. It is a consumable reaching the end of its life, and treating it as scheduled replacement rather than as a fault is the cheaper way to handle it.

Wind-driven rain attacks joints specifically

Rain coming sideways gets behind details that shed vertical rain perfectly well. That is why a flashing can be watertight for years and then leak in one particular storm, and why an intermittent leak points at the joints rather than at the field of the roof.

If your leak only appears in certain weather, say so. It narrows the search considerably and it is the kind of detail people usually leave out.

Big Easy Roofing Process

Four steps. The first one decides whether this is a roofing job at all, which is a question worth asking before anyone buys metal.

Step flashing at a roof to wall junction being inspected before repair
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01

01 Establish that the flashing is actually the failure

Rather than the masonry, the chimney crown or the cladding above it. New flashing under a failed crown does not stop water.

02

02 Identify which type of flashing and how it failed

Step, counter, chimney, valley or penetration. Each fails differently and each has a different correct repair.

03

03 Write the scope and the value

What metal is being replaced and over what length, with the figure that any permit is calculated from and that the licensing threshold turns on.

04

04 Rebuild the detail so it sheds water by shape

Metal lapped in the direction water travels, with sealant as a secondary defence rather than as the thing holding the repair together.

Everything else we do in Harahan

The rest of the Big Easy Roofing services available in Harahan, each with its own page, crew and written scope. Flashing is one class of entry point. If you know there is water coming in but not where from, that is leak detection and it comes first.

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Harahan Flashing Repair FAQs

Why flashing is the most common place a roof leaks, and why the cheap version of this repair keeps coming back.

Topic

Question not here?

Ask us about flashing on your Harahan roof. No charge and no obligation.

Call (504) 800-8196
My roofer sealed the flashing and it is leaking again

That is the most common repeat repair in this trade. Flashing sheds water by shape, by overlapping in the direction water travels. Sealant is a secondary defence with a much shorter service life, shorter again in this heat, so a flashing that has lifted or corroded and then been sealed will usually leak again within a season or two.

Is sealant ever the right answer

Yes, in two situation