Roof Restoration & Guttering Kew

Kew is one of Melbourne's grand old inner-east suburbs, full of established homes on big, leafy blocks. A lot of those homes have terracotta or concrete tile roofs, and after decades under Kew's mature elms and oaks they collect a lot of shade and leaf litter. That means perished pointing, moss on the shaded faces, and gutters that rust out and overflow.

I will be straight with you about one thing. Some of Kew's grandest 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 tired guttering. There is plenty of that across Kew's tile-roofed homes.

A Kew homeowner called me about gutters that had rusted through and were letting water back into the eaves. When I got up there, the old gutters were rotting the fascia timber behind them, which is what happens when they are left too long.

We stripped out the failed guttering, replaced it with new Colorbond gutters, and added a fascia-cover upgrade to protect the timber and finish it cleanly. No more overflow, and the eaves are protected for the long haul. Gutters are the sort of thing people leave until there is a leak inside, but on Kew's tree-lined blocks they earn their keep sooner than most.

On Kew's tile-roofed homes, these are the issues that come up most:

• Perished pointing on older terracotta and concrete ridge caps

• Rusted, overflowing gutters under established elms and oaks

• Fascia timber rotting behind old, failed guttering

• Moss and lichen on the shaded, tree-covered faces

• Cracked or slipped tiles after storms

• Downpipes choked with leaves so water backs up in heavy rain

Sorting the roof and the guttering together is usually the smart move, since a good roof over a failing gutter still lets water into the eaves.