Another exciting project I recently took on in York. The customer had some leaking gutter problems on one of the corners of their home. Upon further inspection, we found that the gutter bent down because the ridge tiles on the main roof are slipping and pushing the whole lot downwards. The plan was that we take off the bottom 3-4 ridge tiles, repair the gutter, install a new hip iron if needed and re-bed the ridge tiles again.
The access was a tricky one on this job. The corner where we needed the repair was right above a new lean-on extension and a huge skylight. Working from ladder this occasion was not an option, we had the get some scaffold for the safe access. Once everything was arranged, I rocked up to the house and got to work. When I had a close-up look on the corner, I realised that the work is gonna take me a lot longer than expected.
The gutter and fascia was pushed down by the ridge tiles by about 60 mm. What was even more worrying, that it looked like someone at some stage re-bedded these ridge tiles already but they didn’t bother to repair the gutter at all. This meant, I had to take down the ridge tiles, fix the gutter and re-bed the ridges while cutting them back a little.
When I started to gently remove the ridge tiles I found that they used very little mortar on the bottom so instead removing 3-4 ridge tiles as planned, I ended removing the bottom 9 ridge tiles. And exactly for this reason I booked this as a whole day job as I knew when I start to work I will find a lot more to repair. Once the ridge tiles were off, I cleaned them the best I could and put them aside. It was time to have a look at the gutter and the corner of the roof.
The ridge tiles pushed not just the gutter but the fascia boards as well over the years. I tried to brace the fascia and pull the corner together again. I also had to screw back the gutter so it is level again and will take the rainwater away to the downpipe instead of dropping it out on the corner. Once this was finished I moved on to the hip iron or what’s left of it. The old hop iron nearly completely rotted away, only holding on about 3-4 mm on the corner. I also found another rotted hip iron left behind the fascia board (lazy roofers). Once I cleaned away everything I had to install a new hip iron. But as I already repaired the fascia boards and the gutter, I had to raise the hip iron as well. I used a few offcuts of battens and finally the corner started to look like they way I wanted it.
The next step was to mix up some mortar for the ridge tiles. The bottom ridge tile was cut on a very rough way (in fact it wasn’t cut, it was chipped with the hammer), so I got out my grinder and tidied up the corner cuts. I set the first ridge tile against the hip iron and started to work my way upwards. On the last ridge tile (which was about 2/3 way up on the whole of the ridge line) I had to cut the tile back about 100 mm. This is how much the ridge tiles were hanging over the gutter and pushing everything down including the gutter and fascia. I pointed up the edges and joints and it was time to clean up the scaffold.
Once I finished, I showed the pictures I took to the home owners and they were satisfied with the work. It was time to load up the car and head home for some well deserved rest.
Screw it! 