Is water staining on your ceiling of your kitchen caused by icedams and roof leaks?

A picture of it would help :)

If you think it’s something serious, it’s important to get professional opinions/help. Can you describe what the water stain looks like and where it is in your kitchen? Is there a room above your kitchen or a roof? The more details, the better.

@PluckyDog I have an insurance claim for ice dam. I am wondering if the water leakage stain near my skylight and a water stain in my closet should be reported to my adjuster?

It could be, but it’s impossible for us to know for sure. If there’s any plumbing above the ceiling, that could be the cause, too.

No plumbing. The frame inside of the kitchen skylight has about 2 to 4 inches of crumbling popcorn and has rust staining as in water leaking. It is about 12 plus 12 inches long. I have defective organic Certainteed shingles. That is what I have found out with this claim. The closet closest to kitchen has water stains where the wall meets the ceiling.

At the very least it sounds like a leaky roof, then. Could be from an ice damn or just a heavy rain, I don’t know if they’d even be able to tell the difference. Can’t hurt to mention the interior damage to them, right?

Yes, I would mention the damage.

Yes, you should have the adjuster look at the skylight at the same time. It’s not really a different claim; if they are going to have to replace your roof, then replacing the flashing around the skylight, or the window itself, would be done at the same time.

Mention the damage to the adjuster and they will do the research to tell you if it’s related. The worst that can happen is that they say no, right?

@marialisa, how do you know you have defective organic Certainteed shingles? Was it an insurance adjuster or a contractor who told you this? If it was a contractor, what I’m getting at is this. If the contractor gave you a quote for repairing the damage, the adjuster may just be able to look at the work the contractor quoted you on. You’d have to get the contractor to look at ALL the water damage and assess that work.

My mother, my SO and I have all experienced leaks in the past year. Mom’s was due to an ice dam, mine was due to the plastic covering coming loose around a bathroom vent pipe, and the SO’s was due to a broken roof tile allowing water to gather under the flashing at the edge of the garage roof and the adjacent part of the house.

In the case of the SO’s house, I had ~5 roofers come over and take a look. They all had differing opinions on the cause. One of the five fixed the problem in a matter of minutes. It was much cheaper than having the shingling replaced (as one suggested) or going through the insurance company.

My advice? Get multiple opinions from those in the field first. It’s time-consuming, but it can pay off in the long run.

Skylights are pretty notorious for leaking, and since they’re seldom close enough to the edge of the roof to be affected by ice dams (which are created and built up along the eaves of the house), I’d be very surprised to see an insurance adjuster sign off on that as “ice damage”.

The leak in the closet (assuming it’s near an outside wall) could very well be due to an ice dam condition.

I would take photographs now to support any claim in case it dries up later.