Haverhill Roofers carries out lead flashing and valley work in Fulbourn, from the first inspection through to dressing, pointing and clearing up after the job.
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Lead work covers all the junctions where a roof surface meets something else - a chimney stack, a parapet wall, a dormer, or the internal angle where two roof slopes come together. At every one of those junctions, lead sheet is shaped, dressed and fixed to form a weatherproof seal. When any of those seals fail, water gets in, often without any obvious damage visible from ground level until it has already caused harm to ceilings, timbers or plasterwork.
Knowing what a proper lead job involves from start to finish helps you judge whether the work being done on your property is thorough or whether corners are being cut.
Before any material is ordered or scaffolding erected, the affected area needs to be looked at properly. A ground-level visual can pick up obvious problems - slipped or missing flashing, open joints, white staining on brickwork - but a proper assessment means getting close to the lead itself.
During the inspection, a roofer should be checking the condition of the lead sheet (cracked, split, fatigued or sound), whether the pointing holding the flashing in the chase has failed, whether soakers are present under step flashings, and whether any water that has already entered has reached the timbers or roof deck below. This last point matters because if rot or wet timbers are found, that work needs to be factored in before new lead goes on top.
The inspection should also confirm what code of lead is currently in place and whether it is appropriate for the location. A roofer who skips straight to a quote without physically checking the detail of the existing installation is missing information that will affect how long any repair lasts.
Most lead work requires scaffolding or at minimum a tower and suitable edge protection, particularly on two-storey properties. On a standard chimney stack repair, a scaffold platform around the stack gives proper working access and allows the roofer to work safely and methodically.
Once access is in place, the old material needs to come off. That means removing existing pointing from the brickwork chase, stripping back any mastic or sealant patches that were applied as temporary fixes, and lifting the old lead sheets carefully to assess what is underneath. If old soakers are present, they come out too.
Any loose or damaged mortar on the chimney face should be raked out at this stage. If brickwork around the chase is crumbling or frost-damaged, that is repaired before the new chase is cut. Cutting a new chase into sound mortar joints gives the replacement lead a solid fixing point rather than a crumbling edge.
On a chimney or wall abutment where a sloped roof meets a vertical surface, soakers go in first. A soaker is a small individual piece of lead, typically cut from Code 3 sheet, that sits under each tile or slate course and turns up the face of the vertical surface. They are hidden once the tiles are relaid, but they do a significant part of the weatherproofing at that joint.
Soakers are sized to the gauge of the tiles they sit with - the length of a soaker is the tile gauge plus the tile lap, plus 25mm for the upstand. Getting this right is straightforward on a standard plain tile or natural slate roof. On a concrete interlocking tile it needs more care because the tiles often cannot be individually lifted and relaid without breaking.
Tiles or slates adjacent to the chimney or abutment are lifted and set aside before soakers go in, then relaid over the top once the soakers are positioned. This is not a job that can be done without disturbing those tiles - if a quote does not mention lifting and relaying tiles around the junction, ask why.
Cover flashings go over the top of the soakers and are the visible part of the flashing set. They are typically cut from Code 4 lead sheet in lengths no greater than 1.5 metres to allow for thermal movement. Longer lengths are more prone to fatigue cracking as the metal expands and contracts with temperature.
Each piece is dressed (shaped by hand using a dresser tool) to sit flat against the brickwork and turn down over the face of the soaker upstand by at least 65mm. The top edge is turned into the chase that has been cut in the mortar joint. On stepped flashings at a chimney side, each piece overlaps the one below by at least 100mm and is clipped to prevent wind uplift.
On a chimney back gutter, the lead needs to be dressed up the rear face of the stack, along the roof slope and up onto the adjacent tiles or slates. This is often the area where water sits longest and where failure causes the most damage - getting the upstand height and the direction of the laps right here is critical.
Once the lead is dressed and positioned, the top edge sitting in the chase is fixed. On brickwork, this means wedging the lead into the chase with lead wedges at regular intervals (typically every 450mm) and then pointing over the chase and wedges with mortar or a lead-matched pointing compound.
The pointing must fill the chase fully and be pressed firmly in behind the lead edge. A surface skim that just covers the joint will crack and fall out in the first frost. On older properties with soft lime mortar brickwork, the correct mortar mix for the pointing matters - a hard cement mix in soft brick causes the brickwork face to spall.
Any tiles or slates that were lifted for access are checked before they go back. Cracked or slipped tiles found during the job are a practical opportunity to replace them at the same time rather than risk a return visit later. Once tiles are relaid and the lead is fully pointed, the area should be left clean - no off-cuts of lead, old mortar, or stripped pointing debris left in the gutter or on the roof surface.
A check from below after the work - particularly after the first heavy rain - confirms whether the repair has taken. Internal damp patches that were present before the work will often take a few weeks to fully dry out even after the water source has been sealed.
Repointing a chimney flashing where the lead is sound typically costs £150 to £350. A full chimney flash replacement including soakers on a standard property generally costs £350 to £700. Valley lining replacements range more widely depending on length, but most domestic jobs fall between £400 and £900. Scaffolding, where required, adds to those figures.
We carry out lead flashing and valley work in Fulbourn and the surrounding area, including nearby Cambridge, Haverhill, Newmarket and Saffron Walden. If you want to know what a proper lead job should involve for your specific roof, call us to arrange a survey before any work is quoted.
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