Roofing, gutters and skylights in Alameda

The Victorian and Edwardian houses through the East End and the Gold Coast were often built with the gutter formed into the cornice rather than hung below it. A trough like that drains through a lined channel behind the decorative work, and when the lining fails the water goes into the woodwork instead of over the edge where you would see it. The first sign is usually paint lifting on the bracket below, not a drip. Relining one is careful work and worth doing properly, because tearing a built-in trough out and hanging ordinary metal in front of the cornice changes the front of the house permanently.

Wind comes off the estuary most afternoons and it does not pick a season. It lifts the outer course along a rake, pushes rain up under laps that shed a calm shower, and works on any cap or vent that faces it. On a tall Victorian the roof planes are steep and small and there are many edges for it to find, so when a leak here shows up only in weather we start from the windward details rather than from the general condition of the covering. Half the leaks we trace on the island are one lap or one lifted cap rather than a worn roof.

Damp is the slow half of the story. Morning fog sits on the north slopes well past sunrise and keeps moss growing where an inland roof would have dried hours earlier. The same damp settles on the inside of an older skylight, so what looks like a leak at the frame is often the room's own moisture meeting cold glass on a still, cold morning. Telling those apart before anyone opens the roof saves a wasted repair, and the way to tell is when it appears rather than where. On Bay Farm the houses are newer and the roofs simpler, but the wind and the damp arrive just the same.