The Roof Looked Fine. The Leak Was Coming From the Angle.

On a recent soffit correction, Champion Handyman found something that explained a leak the homeowner had been chasing for months: the previous roofer had installed the drip edge at a flat 90-degree bend on a 7:12 pitch roof. That angle doesn't work on that pitch — it leaves a gap instead of a seal. The underlayment underneath it was layered wrong, and the drip edge itself wasn't fully nailed down. None of that was visible from the ground. All of it was letting water in.

What a drip edge is actually supposed to do

A drip edge's whole job is to guide water off the roof and into the gutter without letting it get behind the fascia or up under the shingles when wind pushes it sideways. To do that job, the angle has to match the actual pitch of the roof — a drip edge cut and bent for one pitch doesn't seal correctly on a different one, whatever pitch it happens to be. It also has to be layered with the underlayment in the right order, and it has to be fully fastened, not just resting in place. Skip any one of those three things and the drip edge stops doing its job, even though it's still sitting right there and still looks installed.

The mistake that's everywhere, not just on this roof

"It's on there, it'll hold" is the lazy version — a drip edge that's present but not matched to the pitch, not layered correctly, and not fully nailed still counts as "installed" to a homeowner looking up from the yard. The real standard is all three things done right together: the correct angle for the actual roof, the underlayment lapped so water sheds outward instead of into the seam, and the metal fully fastened per spec. This isn't unique to drip edge, either — the same shape of shortcut shows up everywhere: cabinets set without being shimmed level or fastened to the studs, a house settling because no footing was poured, mortar eroding because nobody hung gutters, tile popping because it was never wetted before setting. Different trade every time, same pattern: a corner cut, and nobody catching it until something fails.

Why this isn't a weekend fix

None of these failures show up on a walkthrough. A mismatched drip edge angle, a wrong underlayment lap, and a few missing nails all look identical to correct work from the ground, and often from a quick look in the attic too. It takes someone who knows what correct installation actually looks like, at the pitch and materials involved, to catch it before it becomes a soffit leak, rotted fascia, or worse. That's the standard Champion holds on every job — not because the work always goes perfectly, but because when it doesn't, it gets made right. On a shower installed with a product that turned out to have a manufacturing flaw, Champion went back and recaulked it at no charge the moment the homeowner reported it. Champion gets callbacks because the work is good, not because it fails.