Porch & Plot
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My Shed Stayed Dry in Normal Rain for Three Years. Then One Storm Told Me What I'd Missed.

Water stains on cardboard boxes inside a wooden garden shed
Water stains on cardboard boxes inside a wooden garden shed · not researched , CC BY 4.0

My shed had been through three summers and three winters without a single drop inside. The roof was only two years old, asphalt shingles I’d put on myself, and every spring rain rolled off exactly the way it should.

Then we got a storm that came in hard from the west.

The wind wasn’t anything crazy—maybe thirty miles an hour—but it pushed the rain almost sideways. By the time it cleared, I had a puddle spreading across the plywood floor, right where I keep the mower and the good tools.

I went outside expecting to find a lifted shingle or a cracked seal around the roof peak. Nothing. The surface looked perfect, every tab flat, every edge tight.

That’s when I realized I had no idea where the water was actually getting in.

I needed to see it happen, so I dragged out the garden hose and set up the ladder. A normal soak from directly above did nothing—the roof shed it like it always had.

But when I changed the angle and sprayed the way the storm had hit it, water started showing up inside in less than a minute.

And it wasn’t coming from where I thought.