Rusted slate roof valleys need replacing in Brighton — The valleys are rusting also and will soon need attention- salt air is unforgiving

Repairs to Brighton slate roof due to salt attack

I recently attended to a leaking slate roof probably only half a kilometer from Brighton beach. I was told the house had been built in the late 1970’s. Surprisingly, but not uncommon I guess for the 70’s, the roof had been slated with a few different types of slate. I’m not sure if this was done to achieve some kind of a blended color roof or some other reason. Either way it’s something we definitely don’t do these days. Over the last few years this roof has had leaks in quite a number of different areas. When I inspected the area where it was now leaking it was pretty obvious what was going on. The faded greeny colored slates were absorbing the moist salt air and over time were breaking down completely. Moist salt air is also harsh on metal flashings. I suspect these slates are of Chinese origin. The other color slates were holding up reasonably well to the salt air. The leak in question here was due to the upper end of the slate rotting away and leaving a hole between the slates. Making this leak even bigger was that the rotted slate was directly below where a valley was directing water from further up the roof. This slate and a couple of others were replaced to stop the leaking. The roof has many of these slates mixed through it, so my guess is that as they continue to rot away it will continue to leak. The permanent solution here is to strip and relay the entire roof removing all the decaying and suspect slates. A fair size job as maybe over half the roof is these Chinese slates. It may be more economical and a better job achieved to replace the entire roof with a good quality slate – one that will never suffer from salt attack.