Roof Restoration & Repairs Hawthorn

Hawthorn is one of Boroondara's oldest inner-east suburbs, full of Victorian and Edwardian homes on leafy streets near the Yarra. Many of these homes carry terracotta tile roofs with ornate ridge capping and finials, and after well over a century of Melbourne weather the pointing has perished and tiles have cracked or slipped.

I will be straight with you on one thing. Some of Hawthorn's grand old homes have slate roofs, and slate is a specialist trade of its own that I do not take on. What I do, and do well, is restore terracotta and concrete tile roofs, re-point ridge caps, replace broken tiles and replace worn guttering. There is plenty of that across Hawthorn's tile-roofed homes.

On Hawthorn's period tile roofs, these are the issues that come up most:

• Perished pointing on century-old terracotta ridge caps

• Cracked or slipped Marseille-pattern terracotta tiles

• Ornate ridge capping and finials that have worked loose over time

• Rusted and overflowing gutters under established street trees

• Rusted valley irons on complex Victorian rooflines

• Moss and lichen on the shaded, leafy faces near the river

Restoration keeps the heritage character of a Hawthorn home while making the roof watertight again, for a fraction of the cost of replacing it.