Flat roof leaking issues

I bought a 1984 medallion trailor home to fix up. It has a traditional shingle roof over its original metal roof. The entry way thats attached to the home has a 8x8 area that is flat with zero pitch. For whatever reason the previous owner did some jerry rigging patchwork to pass inspection and sell the home.

Needless to say i had to replace some rotting soaked boards after move in. I ripped off the old rolled shingle roofing and replaced the bad boards and then installed rubber roofing. tacked it all down and smeared tar over the 4 edges in great abundance.

All though to my knowledge it was sealed properly i still have visible leaking inside the entry. just a few drips, but enough to saturate the walls. the leak is on the wall attached to the house. I have had advise to check the seal, but i have its a solid piece of sheet metal going the entire 8ft of the flat area.

Its getting cold now and i cut a small hole in the leaking area to let it dry out better and you feel cold air pushing out of the hole.

im not sure how else to seal the roof? ive been told of other sealers a clear one and a silver one but im unsure if they are compatible with rubber roofing?

is there any other places water could be getting into that im unaware of?

any ideas how to fix my leak issue and to seal the roof better would be much appreciated.

Sounds like you need 5 gallons of gasoline and a match.

Yeah you probably need a pro to handle this. Sounds like a disaster not a $50 fix. Don’t even waste the $ trying to fix this problem with some kind of coating or sealer. One big problem is that you installed rubber then smeared tar all over it, two incompatible materials. However I would suspect that the leak is coming from where the shingles and rubber meet, probably not tied in properly. You would need to tear off 2 or 3 rows of shingles to run the rubber up the pitched section then nail those shingles back in place. Did you do that or did you just tar around the area where the rubber and shingles meet?

Yeah where the shingles meet I just overlapped the rubber roof and put tar over it. That’s how the rolled roofing was installed.

There is no cracks at that seem though? Can water or moisture be getting under it?

Yeah, I would almost bet money its leaking where the rubber overlaps the shingles (could still be leaking at other areas also). Overlapping a lower section onto a higher section is a huge mistake no matter how much tar you use to try to seal it. In fact any quality roofer will probably cringe when they see it. I found this pic of what a proper tie in between a flat roof and a steep roof should look like. It has slate rather than shingles but you should get the idea. Also if you have a true rubber roof (epdm) tar is an incompatible materiel. Meaning tar will not stop leeks on a rubber roof. Not trying to rain on your parade but like I said this sounds like it needs a total redo.

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Frame it in with rafters or trusses, space sheath it, & install a metal roof.

Alright I think I got the idea now, but if tar is incompatible what should I be using?

A picture of what you did would help tremendously.

The rubber that goes onto the shingled portion of the roof needs to go under the shingles, it also needs to go up under the shingles a bit, 18"-24" at least.

The rubber around the edge of the roof is turned down over the edge and fastened, then a perimeter metal is installed over the top of that.
Then it is stripped in with cured cover tape.

If it’s been leaking the insulation or recovery board needs to be replaced, it will be saturated.

Caulking for EPDM roofing is called water cut off mastic and you don’t want to go trying to smear a bunch of this crap around because it will get all over everything you included.

There is another obsolete caulk I still see some use, it’s called edge caulk, you don’t need this for anything.

Chances are that the whole thing can be done with no caulk at all, if done right.

Most likely the low slope roof needs to be removed & replaced.

Water block or water cut off only works under pressure for example under the rubber where a drain ring gets clamped down, or behind the rubber on a wall where term bar gets installed.

Flat roofs are generally built of layers and tar. Leakage usually occurs where roofing felt some damage at low spots. Is there Stillwater in leaked area, soak it with rags and left place dry, brush it and look for the cracks. Use painter’s tape to identify any leakage or crack. Insert generous amount of roofing cement into the crack and all it sides. Cut a patch of roofing material that would cover the roofing cement. Press it into a place, taking care out work without air bubbles between patch and cement roofing.

Use the claucking gun and roofing tar to get roof repaired in the better way.