Moved into a new house a few weeks ago and the back paneling of the built ins in the office is showing signs of water damage. Went back and looked at the pictures I took during the inspection (may 1) and one small spot was visible but it's become significantly worse since that time. I haven't been able to determine if it's worse after a rain or not.

Behind this is an exterior wall with a stone facade. There is a hose spigot on this wall but not directly behind the highest moisture readings.

The gutters, fascia, and soffit all seem to be in perfect condition to my untrained eye. The roof is 12 years old but I don't see any obvious defects that would be letting water through into the wall. There are two exposed nailheads but they would be over the soffit/overhang not the wall or room itself.

Moisture readings on the interior top of the built ins and the drywall on the wall above it are seemingly normal or only slightly elevated. Readings for the ceiling of the room are also normal.

Any ideas on how to pinpoint this? Obviously I'll have to tear out the back panels of the built ins at a minimum so any tips to save the rest would be great too. I like them and also really don't want this to spiral into a 5 figure repair..

Attached pics show the moisture meter readings in red and my attempt to triangulate the hotspot on the inside and outside (teal x).

My 2-cents
Worst cases
1) wall flashing leaking onto top of interior wall, then running "downhill" maybe to center of bookcase where the highest reading line up vertically; since this is not thru-wall metal flashing, the sealant is suspect and the wear on the shingles from upper gutter/leader suggests this flooding area could spread to the wall at times
2) there's a "raincoat" at interior wall outboard face that could be compromised, esp. if mortar droppings got messy & didn't make it all way to bottom = mini-dams to driving rain or upper leaks trying to get out weep holes at bottom. What if the gutter does have a dip that catched water in it, as photo suggests, then has time to leak behind this brick veneer wall aka rainshield wall?
3) the most common suspect are the yard sprinker heads driving "rain" at such a spot, coupled with a void in raincoat protection

Let us know for sure what this is when found out?

If you move up from the X until you get to the roof and then look a little left, it looks like some white grout is missing. Could be wind driven rain getting in a hole there?

Also, unrelated, but that gutter downspout on the left seems to be missing a bend on the end to kick water away from the foundation. That will cause too much moisture to get into the soil there and could cause foundation issues.

Breggy Popup said:

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1) What is that dark spot on the grout almost directly up from the blue X?

2) Were you subject to any of the high speed wind driven rain some of us have had in recent weeks? Maybe water was blown into the soffit and down the inside of the walls?

We had water get blown through two nail holes on one side of the house which ran down an interior wall. That was a weird one.

We also had water get blown through siding on the other side of the house which melted part of my daughter's bedroom wall.

Wind driven water will find its way inside a lot of the time.

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The spot at the top on the two rows of brick is just a wasp nest. Is that what you meant?

Yes, we're in Katy so we had the derecho and some of the other bad storms. But this is the east side of the house so I doubt it took much directly. And it appears to have been present prior to any of those.

If it was wind driven wouldnt you expect it to be drying out quickly too? It's still hitting the max on the moisture meter and we haven't had notable rain in a while

Thunderstruck xx said:

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If you move up from the X until you get to the roof and then look a little left, it looks like some white grout is missing. Could be wind driven rain getting in a hole there?

Also, unrelated, but that gutter downspout on the left seems to be missing a bend on the end to kick water away from the foundation. That will cause too much moisture to get into the soil there and could cause foundation issues.

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Yeah just responded to the other post but it's not a hole. Here's a pic I took of the soffit area.. all seems totally fine to me

And noted on the downspout. That's on the to do list for sure

jt2hunt said:

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Hose Bibb means there is a copper or pex pipe inside that wall. I would do a pressure test on the water system to rule that out first.

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I think this is it. Dropped 10 psi in 10 minutes from that spigot when I turned the water off to the house. Any other ways to verify this is the source? Nothing else was using water that I know of

What's next? I tear out the back of the bookshelves and hope I can find it in the wall I guess?

I'm not sure how they are installed. Hoping that it's easily accessible.

JobSecurity said:

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jt2hunt said:

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Hose Bibb means there is a copper or pex pipe inside that wall. I would do a pressure test on the water system to rule that out first.

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I think this is it. Dropped 10 psi in 10 minutes from that spigot when I turned the water off to the house. Any other ways to verify this is the source? Nothing else was using water that I know of

What's next? I tear out the back of the bookshelves and hope I can find it in the wall I guess?

I'm not sure how they are installed. Hoping that it's easily accessible.

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You could do a loop test and figure out which manifold feeds that hose bid and then do a reroute, but since you know that it's leaking from up in the wall down, figure out the least expensive way to open that wall up to access the copper pipe which most likely is gonna be sheet rock from the inside

Feel free to PM me and I'll give my phone number out for any questions

Tore the back out but the leak must be higher up in the wall. The back of the shelving was plywood and it was wet, and there was some mold on the surface of the drywall behind that so I removed it all.

Not entirely clear to me where the leak is. The pex line goes into the wall above the shelves but the main water damage is further over. Really didn't want to tear into the drywall above it but I guess I'm going to have to.

Nothing was wet to the touch, dripping, or anything like that. Turned on the spigot and all the taps inside to see if anything would make it worse but nothing did. Sprayed the roof with the hose to see if that would do anything but still nothing.

Wild. Keep us posted

do you have access to this area of the attic? would be curious to see if there are any signs on the roof deck or anything

Update please?

After having fans on it for a few days it had dried out. I turned the fans off yesterday and it's still reading about the same, so if it's really a leak it has to be incredibly slow. After the hurricane goes through I'll check it again and see if it's wet.

If a hurricane doesn't cause any water to get in I guess my next step would be to call a plumber. I just don't get how a leak so slow I can't find it could cause that much damage

I think your leak is in the attic in the pex. Have you looked up there along the wall plate?

So in the last two months I've had 5 people come out to look at this and nobody can figure it out.

Servpro came by and were mad because my fans had dried it out so there was nothing for them to do.

Plumber came by and said it's not a leak

Roofer came and said the roof is fine

Had a GC come take a look and they don't have any other ideas either

During this time we also had hurricane Beryl and everything was still completely dry after that.

At this point it still looks like the last pic above and I think I'm just going to have a contractor replace the insulation/drywall/plywood to rebuild the backs of the bookshelves.

Any contractor recommendations for a scope like that in West Houston? It doesn't seem like a big job but I don't have time to do it myself

I assume this is a "new to me" house and not an actual new home?

What's going on with the stone wall? It looks like it overhangs the brick ledge and I don't see any weep holes. It it a real stone wall or is it more of a thin veneer stucco type application?

Just curious - do you happen to remember what was in that center opening when you looked at the house? Just wondering what the previous owners might have had in there. Maybe an aquarium that might have busted upon them moving out? There seem to be clues in the fact that it was barely noticeable when you did the inspection and then immediately got worse. I think this points to some sort of event happening prior to you buying it.

The Kraken said:

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I assume this is a "new to me" house and not an actual new home?

What's going on with the stone wall? It looks like it overhangs the brick ledge and I don't see any weep holes. It it a real stone wall or is it more of a thin veneer stucco type application?

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New to us, house is 12 years old

It's a veneer. They sit on a metal ledge type thing. No obvious damage or any water intrusion through the sheathing since I've had it opened up

Bonfire97 said:

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Just curious - do you happen to remember what was in that center opening when you looked at the house? Just wondering what the previous owners might have had in there. Maybe an aquarium that might have busted upon them moving out? There seem to be clues in the fact that it was barely noticeable when you did the inspection and then immediately got worse. I think this points to some sort of event happening prior to you buying it.

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Nothing there, just decor. You can see the initial water damage I circled in red. So this pic was early May, the other pictures I posted above were how far it had progressed by the end of june. Just so weird it got that much worse but not a single sign of moisture since I opened it up



Edit actually realized I didn't post a good pic of the damage before I tore it out. Here's a better one

Do you know if the stone exterior was a more recent change to the house? Looks like a different mortar color and the header course looks like it could be a different brick than the rest of the house. Could there be some kind of vapor barrier or wrap issue here if/when that was changed out? Seems like that's a long shot, but just spitballing.

No, the stone is also about half of the front of the house too.

Is there a sprinkler head right under that area? If so, I am betting it got chopped off by a mower and was shooting water straight up behind that brick veneer. Probably was fixed before your inspection. I still think this was something like this - i.e. an event of some type that happened before you bought it and there is no ongoing issue.

Bonfire97 said:

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Is there a sprinkler head right under that area? If so, I am betting it got chopped off by a mower and was shooting water straight up behind that brick veneer. Probably was fixed before your inspection. I still think this was something like this - i.e. an event of some type that happened before you bought it and there is no ongoing issue.

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Our neighbor's house has a geyser from a missing sprinkler spraying straight up into the brick/window at the front of their house. It has been that way for a while; I even knocked to tell them about it and they were aware of the problem. I was thinking about this thread when I saw it.

what did the plumber actually do/check? did he check all the PEX fittings?

If there is no sprinkler there, then the other problem I thought of is a very slow leak caused by the Jan 2024 freeze. There may have been a leak in the piping to that outdoor faucet that took several months to show up because it was a slow drip and it had to saturate the insulation first. The previous owner probably had it fixed before you bought the house.

Yeah… I wouldn't seal that wall up until the problem became evident and you repair it.