Every autumn the same calls come in. A ceiling stain has appeared in a top floor flat, damp is spreading down an internal wall, or water is pouring over a gutter onto the pavement. In most cases the cause is not dramatic. It is a blocked outlet, a slipped slate or a gully full of leaves. For owners, landlords and managing agents, mid October is the right time to check before the winter rain arrives.
Roofs
Pitched roofs should be looked at from the ground with binoculars, or from a safe vantage point, for:
- slipped, cracked or missing slates and tiles;
- loose or missing ridge and hip tiles;
- lead flashings that have lifted or cracked around chimneys and abutments;
- vegetation growing in valleys and on parapets.
Flat roofs need someone on them, safely, to check for blisters, splits, ponding water and blocked outlets. Leaves and silt collect at outlets and, once water ponds, it finds its way through the smallest defect.
Gutters and downpipes
Gutters fill with leaves, moss and debris, especially near trees. When they overflow, water runs down the face of the wall, saturating brickwork, damaging pointing and eventually showing as damp inside. Downpipes can block at the bends or at the hopper heads. Cast iron gutters and pipes should also be checked for cracks and rust, particularly on the side against the wall, where they are hard to see.
Gullies and drains
At ground level, gullies and drainage channels collect leaves and silt. A blocked gully can back up against the base of a wall and cause damp at low level, or flood a basement light well. Lift the gratings and clear them out.
Make it routine
None of this is expensive. The cost of a contractor clearing gutters and gullies twice a year is small compared with the cost of repairing rotten timbers, saturated walls and damaged ceilings. The best approach is to put these visits on a fixed cycle, record what was found and feed any repairs into a longer term maintenance plan, so that small problems are dealt with before they become large ones.
See our Planned Preventative Maintenance service, and how we later built a ten year maintenance plan for a managing agent.