Roofers in Crimond

Flat ground means full exposure

Places with hills get shelter on one side. Crimond does not. The land between the village and the coast at Rattray Head is flat, open and largely treeless, so wind arrives at full strength from the east and north-east and keeps going. In practical terms that means uplift at the edges of roofs — verges, ridges and eaves — is the governing problem here rather than anything in the middle of the roof.

We detail accordingly: mechanical dry verge instead of mortar, ridge either mechanically fixed or bedded and clipped, and eaves courses properly nailed rather than relying on the course above to hold them. On a roof this exposed, the standard detail is the minimum rather than the target.

Farms, steadings and the old airfield

Beyond the village it is agricultural, and a good share of the roofs are working buildings rather than houses — steadings, grain stores, machinery sheds, and the surviving structures from the wartime airfield. Sheeted roofs on open-sided buildings take wind from underneath as well as above, which is a different failure mode from a house: the sheet lifts at the fixing and eventually tears off it. The fix is more fixings and the right washers, not a heavier sheet.

Older sheeting may be asbestos cement. We identify it before anybody goes near it.

Low-lying ground and rainwater

Drainage around Crimond is flat, and gutters and downpipes that discharge to a gully which itself does not run away cause more trouble here than they would elsewhere. When we replace guttering in the village we look at where the water is actually going, not just at the gutter — there is little point in a perfect roof feeding water back against the base of the wall.

• Wind uplift damage at verges, ridges and eaves
• Sheeted farm and steading roofs refixed or replaced
• Guttering and downpipes, including where they discharge
• Emergency call-outs after easterly gales