Little or no roof overhang, can we fix this?

[daisychain45]

Hi, we have a very old property (c. 150 years), end terrace in a very exposed location in Yorkshire. The gable wall has been rendered in the past, and is failing in places. Where we have cleaned it off to repair, the masonry behind is fairly ropey, with loose mortar between the stones.

There is little or no overhang, and when it rains, water runs down the gable wall rather than down the roof and nicely away in the gutters. We have a problem with damp in the worst-affected bedroom, and in the nearest part of the adjacent bathroom.

The whole row of cottages appear to have been reroofed at the same time, as they all have the same tiles; we have big heavy stone coping stones at the gable end, that the render runs almost flush up against on the outside edge (if you see what I mean).

I've been reading on the forum here about dry verge systems, and wonder whether you guys think this might help, or be a possible solution? We wondered about lead flashing, but aren't sure of the best way to go about fixing this. The coping stones really are huge, and the prospect of moving them is just a little bit scary!

Any thoughts would be very welcome! Cheers

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Photos please.

 

[ladylola]

Agreed photos would help.
Is the water penetrating through the gable wall or through the roof? If it's coming in through the roof it will or should show on your ceilings in which case it sounds like a problem with flashings. Idealy if this is the case the copings should come off and new lead laid underneath them along with flashings and soakers, although it may be possible to work with them in place as you would if it were a wall. This will depend on how thick they are in the first place. Another method I have seen done in this case is to cut a groove on top of the copings to turn the flashing into and then filling with either mortar or mastic like "leadmate". It may also be possible to cap the whole coping with lead and at the same time build out the stones to give a overhang but this option starts to sound expensive.

 

[daisychain45]

Hi all,

Thanks for your responses - sorry, I should have thought to add some photos! Silly me....

Okay, hopefully I will have attached photos of the gable end. I can't get pix of the roof itself, I#m just not that high, but you can see the edges of the coping stones; these are about 2-3" thick, and about 15" -18" squareish. The tiles are Marley tiles, if I remember what my roofer told me a few years ago, and I understand they're nothing special.

The first photo is of the south end of the wall, and you can see how patched and cracked the render is. The second one is of the north end of the wall, where we have replaced some of the render in an attempt to rectify the dampness inside. This was really badly cracked, and the masonry underneath very uneven, and extending out under the coping stones, so there wasn't really an option of reducing the render thickness enough to make a difference.

We did have a problem with rain pouring down inside the southern end of the roof a few years back, when the wind was from the east, but this was resolved - there just wasn't any felt under the tiles at all, so that was put in, and all made good around the chimney stack. What we are getting is damp in the extreme outside corner, and some salts forming under the paint of the window casing round on the north wall of the house. The whole house seems to have an issue with condensation, as it's just got cold walls, not being a nice cavity construction.

We are currently debating the best sort of coating to put on the render - I've been reading that the plasticised coatings can cause more of a problem if you already have damp in the walls, as they don't allow them to breathe properly.

So in short (!), the rain's not coming in the roof, it's pouring off the roof onto the external walls, and then seeping in through the pokey render (is my best guess).

Sorry for being so longwinded, I'm not sure how much info to give

Untitled

• daisychain45
• 7 Mar 2010
• 1

Untitled

• daisychain45
• 7 Mar 2010
• 1

 

[josh finlay]

Hi Daisychain, did you ever fix this issue. We have the same problem on a property in Pembrokeshire