Roofing, gutters and skylights in Piedmont

Clay and slate behave nothing like a shingle roof and they are unforgiving of anyone who treats them the same way. A boot in the wrong place cracks a tile, and a roof that had two broken pieces before a visit can have six afterward. So we do not walk these roofs to look at them when a lens from the ground will do, and when work is needed the crew moves on boards laid to spread the load. What sits beneath the tile matters as much as the tile itself: a handful of cracked pieces over sound underlayment is an afternoon, and the same pieces over brittle felt is a much larger conversation.

Half-round gutters and soldered corners suit these houses and they need a different hand from a snapped-together sectional run. The bracket has to carry the metal without bearing on the roof covering, and a corner is made rather than filled. When a joint on a run like this keeps weeping after it has been sealed twice, the answer is usually that it is moving or that it sits in standing water, so we look at the fall of the run before reaching for another tube. Matching an existing profile is often possible, and where it is not we would rather say that before the work starts.

The canopy over these streets is the other constant. Mature oaks and redwoods drop into valleys and against the raised frames around skylights, and debris held on the uphill side of one of those keeps the flashing damp long after the rain. That area deserves attention at the same visit as the gutters rather than at the next one. Where any of this touches the look of the house from the street, expect us to ask about approvals before ordering material, since a finish agreed late is a delay nobody needs.