Free Roof Check • Chimney Flashings • Valleys
Leadwork Eastbourne
A stain on the chimney breast, a damp patch where your extension meets the house, or a ceiling that marks up every time it rains hard?
Nine times out of ten that is your lead, and it is the one thing sealant will never fix. We will find yours for free, then renew it in code 4 and code 5 sheet lead.
Call 01323 33 55 33Found, then renewed
We Find Your Leak At The Joint
Your leak is almost certainly at a junction rather than out on the open slope. Where your chimney comes through, where two slopes run together in a valley, or where your back addition meets the wall of the house. You will not see any of it from the pavement.
That is exactly where we start. We open up the junctions that matter on your roof and find the piece of lead that has actually failed, instead of guessing from the mark on your ceiling. You then hear which detail has gone, what renewing it involves and what your figure is.
We renew your flashings, valley linings, soakers and aprons in proper sheet lead, so you are not paying somebody to stare at the same damp patch again next winter. The roof check is free and you are under no obligation. Ring 01323 33 55 33.
Get A Price For This Work
What you get from us
What Proper Leadwork Buys You
You get the right lead for the detail
We put code 4 on your flashings and soakers, and code 5 where your lead has to carry water or take a boot. Going thinner would save you a few pounds today and cost you the whole job again in a few years.
Laid in lengths that can move
Your lead grows and shrinks with the weather, so we keep every length to what the code allows and lap and clip it. That is why ours is not splitting down the middle by the third winter.
No cement fillet where lead belongs
We will not fill your joint with mortar or a run of mastic, because it cracks and then feeds water into your wall. You get copper or stainless clips too, so your fixings last as long as the lead we put on.
Leadwork You Can Book Us For
Whatever has gone on yours, this is what you get:
- A free roof check first - we look at every junction on your roof before we quote, so you are not paying us to renew the one that was fine.
- Chimney flashings - we renew your front apron, step flashings and soakers, so your stack stops marking the chimney breast downstairs.
- Back gutters - we relay the lead trough behind your stack, the wettest detail on the roof, before it puts water through your ceiling.
- Valley linings - we strip your split valley out, reline it in code 5 and re-lay the tiles either side, so it carries the water instead of soaking the room below.
- Roof-to-wall abutments - where your extension or a lower roof meets brickwork, we cut fresh lead into a chase and dress it down rather than smearing the joint with mastic.
- Dormer and bay cheeks - we renew the lead on your dormer sides, bay tops and porch roof so they stop running water down the inside of the wall.
- Soakers, aprons and secret gutters - the details you will never see from the ground, all of them there to keep your house dry.
Chalky white marks on the surface, a run that has gone wavy instead of straight, or a clean split down its length. If you can see any of those from an upstairs window, your lead has done its time and we should be looking at it.
Book your free roof check on 01323 33 55 33. Should your lead turn out to be sound, we will say so and leave it alone, and there is still nothing for you to pay.
Common questions
Leadwork Questions We Get Asked
It closes the gap between the stack and the roof on all four sides: an apron at the front, step flashings cut into the mortar joints up each side with soakers under the slates, and a back gutter behind. Each piece laps over the one below, so the water is always passed downhill and never inwards.
Almost always because the run was over-length, or fixed at both ends, so it had nowhere to go when it expanded and contracted. The split runs in a straight line at the point of greatest stress. A valley lining on a thirties semi is where it shows up most, because it is the longest piece of lead on the roof.
It is a thickness rating. Code 3 is thin, code 8 is heavy. Most domestic work here is code 4 and code 5, the heavier where the lead takes weather, water or a boot. The common fault is somebody using a lighter code than the detail calls for.
Because water that gets past the flashing runs down the outside of the flue inside the stack, and comes out wherever the brickwork lets it, which is usually a floor or two below. The nearest visible thing gets the blame, and the lead at the roof line is where it began.
Not for long. A step flashing that has dropped out of its chase has usually lost the wedges or the pointing that held it, and pushing it back with a bead of sealant lasts a season. The joint is raked out, the lead turned back in, wedged and pointed.
Sometimes, by lead welding, which is a real repair and not a smear of sealant. It is worth doing when the lead is sound and something has simply torn it. It is not worth doing when the lead split because the run was too long, the code too light or the fixings wrong, because all you have then bought is a few more years before it does the same thing again. Lead that was specified and fixed properly in the first place will outlive most of the roofs it sits in.
More from Eastbourne Roofing
More Of What We Do
Towns we cover
Leadwork Across Eastbourne
We take on leadwork across Eastbourne, Hailsham, Polegate, Meads and Willingdon - flashings at your stack, new valley linings, soakers and abutments. If your water is showing at a junction rather than out on the open slope, ring us for a free roof check.
Call 01323 33 55 33