It was actually the vent not the roof. We were camping overnight with the grandkids to break up the weekend when their parents were taking a birthday trip to New York City. The campground was also a shorter drive to their Saturday Korean school than from our house.
We visited Chatfield Farms, a second site for the Denver Botanic Garden. These gardens have a more rural influence and they grow vegetables and have an orchard there. The treehouse was a kid favorite and the non-honey bee hotel was built by a girl scout troop. We also talked about Ben Franklin and lightning rods and the kids liked the flooded creek.
The Chatfield Lake State Park is near the gardens and we camped overnight. It was amazing to see the weather shift from gorgeous in the afternoon to cold and cloudy at dinnertime.
Then it grew really stormy with thunder and lightning and it began to hail heavily. I caught it on video. It was hard to hear the movie!
Pretty soon the hail was piling up like snow. And the roof vent over the rear bed began to leak badly.
We quickly moved the bedding and put a bucket under the leak. I tried to dry it out but it was coming in fast. I went outside in the terrible weather and climbed to the roof to see that the hail had dammed up around the vent sides. I had a rag that I used to sweep the hail off around the vent. By later that evening the leak subsided although it was too damp to use that bed.
After we got home I found the problem. One of the bolts holding the vent cover on over the lid had fallen out leaving a 1/8″ hole in the side of the vent. The damming of the hail held water against the vent and allowed it to flow through the hole.
The vent lid was old, yellowed and cracked anyway and I had a replacement I had been planning to install. The new vent lid was a little difficult to put on because I could not lay it flat due to the solar panel installation. But I got it to attach. Then I reinstalled the connectors for the vent cover and made sure to caulk all the bolts well. I bolted the vent cover on and noticed the front grill had some chips from the hail. But I checked the rest of the roof and there did not appear to be more damage, especially to the solar panels. The area benefitted from a good cleaning too.
