Lead flashing quietly does one of the most important jobs on a roof, sealing the joints where a roof meets a chimney, wall, or another change in the roofline, and it's a common casualty of severe weather. Across Lawrence Hill's older housing stock, where flashing has sometimes been in place for many years, storms can lift, crease or tear it loose from its original dressing far more easily than on a recently fitted equivalent.
Because flashing sits at a junction rather than across an open expanse of tiles, damage here doesn't always look dramatic. A slightly lifted edge or a small tear can be enough to let water through, and unlike a missing tile, this kind of damage is often invisible from the ground, only becoming apparent once a leak has already started somewhere inside the property.
Where flashing has failed around a chimney, water can travel down inside the chimney breast and appear as a damp patch some distance from the roof itself, which makes chimney-related flashing leaks a bit harder to diagnose without someone experienced getting up to look directly at the joint in question.
Emergency flashing repairs generally involve removing the damaged section, checking the surrounding tiles and pointing for related wear, and dressing new lead carefully into the joint so it continues to shed water properly. Where the flashing has failed at multiple points, or the surrounding brickwork or tiles have also been affected, the repair may need to be a bit more involved than a single strip replacement.
Lead theft is an unfortunate reality worth mentioning too, since it's occasionally the cause of missing flashing rather than storm damage alone, particularly on older properties across Lawrence Hill where traditional lead is still in place. Where flashing has gone missing rather than simply been damaged, it's worth reporting this to the police as well as arranging a repair, since it may be relevant for insurance purposes. Whatever the cause, modern flashing repairs sometimes use lead-substitute materials as an alternative to traditional lead, offering similar performance with some added resistance to this kind of theft, which is worth asking about if it's a concern for your particular property and its history. Where flashing has failed at a dormer window or a junction with a rear extension, rather than at a chimney, the underlying principle is much the same, though the surrounding materials and the angle of the joint can make the repair itself quite different in practice. Whoever carries out the work should be comfortable working with the specific type of junction involved, since flashing detail that looks similar at a glance can actually require quite different techniques depending on where on the roof it sits.
Brunel Roofing Bristol carries out lead flashing repairs across Lawrence Hill, with a 24-hour emergency call-out for anything urgent and free inspections to confirm exactly where a leak is coming from before work begins, all backed by a 15-year guarantee on completed repairs.
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