Storm Damage Roof Repairs in West Kirby: What to Look For

The Local Version of Storm Damage

West Kirby faces the mouth of the Dee with nothing in the way, so a westerly arrives with a long clear run and carries salt and, on this stretch, sand.

The result is a recognisable local pattern. The damage is concentrated on one elevation - the weather face - and it is concentrated at perimeters rather than in the middle of anything.

It is also frequently invisible until the next storm, because a lifted edge does not necessarily leak in ordinary rain.

Flat Roofs: Check the Corners First

West Kirby has a great many flat roofs - extensions, dormers, garages, and the flat-roofed properties built to take advantage of the view - and they are where the post-storm damage concentrates.

A flat roof covering is held at its perimeter by a trim or a welted edge. Wind lifts hardest at edges and hardest of all at corners, so that is where to look.

A corner standing proud of the trim, or a visible ripple running back from a corner, means the wind has got an air path underneath. Once it has, it works at it every time it blows, and the covering peels rather than lies.

The upstand where the flat roof meets a wall. Has the flashing over it lifted? Is the covering still tucked in and capped?

The outlet. After a blow it will have collected whatever came off the trees and the roof, and a blocked outlet holds water exactly where the covering has joints.

A flat roof corner that has started to peel is a same-week job rather than a next-month one, because the next front will take it further.

Lead: Lifted, Not Torn

Wind does not tear lead. It gets under the free edge and lifts it, a little more each gust.

So what to look for is not damage but posture: lead that is standing away from the brickwork rather than lying flat, a bottom edge that has curled up off the tiles, a dark open line at the top edge where the pointing over the wedges has gone.

A lifted flashing on the weather side may not leak at all in vertical rain, which is why it can sit like that for a year unnoticed. It leaks in the first proper westerly, and by then it has been getting worse all winter.

It is worth a specific look after any serious blow, from the ground with a zoom lens, at every piece of lead you can see.

Check the Gutters - They Hold the Evidence

After a storm here the gutters and valleys will have collected sand, salt spray residue, grit off the covering and whatever came off the trees.

Two reasons to look. First, a gutter full of sand is not draining, and sand is abrasive as well as obstructive - in a valley it wears the lining.

Second, what is in there tells you what happened above. A washing of dark granules means surface came off a covering. Lumps of mortar mean ridge or verge bedding let go. Fragments of felt mean underlay is exposed somewhere and tearing.

Clearing them is a job worth doing after a storm rather than in the spring, because the next front is usually about a week away.

And the Pitched Roof Checklist, Coastal Version

The ridge, the verge on the weather side, the corners, and the first course above the gutter - the standard uplift zones, all on the seaward elevation.

Tiles that have moved rather than fallen. On this coast, tiles are lifted and dropped back constantly, and a course sitting slightly lower than its neighbour is the early warning.

And the specific coastal one: check whether anything that came down is undamaged. An intact tile or slate on the ground means the fixing corroded, which on this coast is the commonest cause and means the repair needs non-ferrous fixings rather than a like-for-like replacement.