Roof Restoration & Repairs Essendon

Essendon is one of Melbourne's established inner north-west suburbs, and it shows in the rooflines. A lot of the homes here are Edwardian, Federation and Californian bungalow, built through the early 1900s to the 1930s, and most still wear their original terracotta tile. Those tiles are tough and can last a century, but the mortar bedding and pointing that holds the ridge caps on does not last anywhere near as long. By the time a roof has seen 80 or 90 Essendon winters, that pointing has usually cracked and started letting water in.

Because Essendon sits close to the Maribyrnong and has plenty of established trees, we also see a lot of algae and moss on the shaded southern faces, and gutters that clog with leaf litter. These homes are worth looking after properly, so I take a careful, sympathetic approach rather than a rip-and-replace one.

On the older terracotta roofs around Essendon, these are the issues that come up again and again:

• Perished lime-mortar pointing on early-1900s terracotta ridge caps (the usual cause of leaks here)

• Algae and moss on shaded, tree-lined streets, especially the southern faces near the river

• Cracked or slipped Marseille-pattern terracotta tiles after storms

• Rusted valley irons letting water into the roof space

• Decorative ridge capping and terracotta finials that have worked loose over the decades

• Gutters and downpipes overwhelmed by leaf litter from established trees

Most of these are fixable without touching the field tiles themselves, which is what makes a restoration such good value on an Essendon roof.