Roof restoration and repairs in Auburn

The roofs around Auburn

Auburn, Lidcombe and Berala are largely post-war and mid-century brick, and the roofs on them are concrete tile laid in the fifties through the seventies. That is the classic profile for the failure order we see everywhere in this part of Sydney: the tiles are still structurally fine, but the bedding mortar under the ridge caps has gone rigid and cracked, and the valley irons have rusted where leaf litter has held water against bare steel for thirty years.

Silverwater and Newington are a completely different proposition. Much of Newington was built for the 2000 Olympics and the surrounding blocks have gone up since, so you are looking at newer tile and Colorbond on tighter modern rooflines, often with box gutters and parapets on duplexes and townhouses. Those roofs rarely need restoring yet. What they need is the flashings and box gutters checked, because a modern roof that fails does it through a detail rather than through the tiles.

There is also a lot of subdivision and duplex building through Auburn and Lidcombe, which means a lot of new roofs sitting next to fifty-year-old ones, and a lot of shared boundaries where one roof drains onto another. That is worth knowing before anyone starts chasing a leak on the wrong side of a fence.

What we get called out for here

• Cracked ridge capping on mid-century tile The most common job in Auburn and Lidcombe by a distance, and the cheapest to fix. Re-pointing starts at $800.
• Rusted valley irons Under sound tiles, on roofs of that age, and very often the actual cause of a leak somebody has been quoted a full re-roof for.
• Box gutters on newer duplexes Silverwater and Newington stock. A box gutter that backs up does not drip outside the house, it drips inside it, so these get urgent quickly.
• Storm damage Open, exposed blocks through Silverwater and the Olympic Park corridor catch wind that older tree-covered streets do not.