Roofers in Rosehearty

Salt spray, not just salt air

Most coastal roofing is about salt carried in the air. On the seafront at Rosehearty it is coarser than that — in an onshore blow the front properties get actual spray landing on the roof. Salt crystallises in the laps and at the fixings, and it takes the life out of galvanised steel remarkably quickly. We have seen nails on front-row roofs here in a state after fifteen years that you would expect after fifty somewhere inland.

So on the seafront we fix in stainless steel or copper as a matter of course rather than as an upgrade, and where a roof has failed early we check whether the previous job used galvanised, because that is usually the answer. It is worth paying the difference once.

Low cottages, shallow pitches

The old fishing cottages run in rows close to the shore, single-storey, with roofs at pitches shallower than you would choose today. A shallow pitch drains slowly, which on a windward site means water is being pushed back up the roof rather than running off it. These roofs need generous laps and careful attention at the verge and eaves, and they are unforgiving of a patch dropped in without regard to how the courses run.

The upside of low cottages is access — most of this work can be done off a tower or ladders without full scaffold, which keeps the cost down considerably compared with the same repair on a two-storey house in Fraserburgh.

After a storm

Rosehearty is seven miles from us along the coast road, so on a bad night we can reach it quickly. If slates have come off onto the road or the shore path, say so when you ring — anything that is a danger to somebody walking past gets dealt with before anything else.

• Stainless and copper refixing on seafront property
• Shallow-pitch slate repairs with increased lap
• Chimney stacks on exposed gables repointed and re-flaunched
• Roofline and guttering replacement where salt has finished off the timber