Roofing, gutters and skylights in Pinole

Downtown, the older cottages along Pinole Valley Road were built with narrow eaves and shallow gutter runs that were never asked to carry much. Damp air off the shoreline is unkind to the small parts: the screws that hold a hanger, the rivets at a corner, the clips on a downspout strap. Those give out long before the channel itself does, and a run that has dropped at one end is often held by fixings that have rusted thin rather than by wood that has failed. When we look at a gutter here we start at the fasteners and the fascia together, and we say which of the two is actually letting go, because replacing the metal on tired fixings buys a season at most.

Up in Pinole Valley the picture changes. The subdivisions behind the creek sit under blue gum eucalyptus and bay laurel, and both shed year round rather than in one autumn drop. Eucalyptus bark peels in long strips that lodge across an outlet and hold water against the joint below. Bay laurel leaves are small and waxy, and they slip through coarse covers to settle in the low end of a run. Where a lot backs onto open hillside, we also look at what the wind brings up the slope. Knowing which of those lands on your roof decides whether the answer is more frequent clearing, a finer guard or a larger outlet.

Wind is the third thing worth planning for. Gusts funnel through the valley and press against the sloping rake edge of a gable, which is where water gets pushed back under a covering that sheds an ordinary shower without complaint. On the older houses that edge often has no metal strip beneath the first course, so rain blown sideways runs onto the board instead of into the trough. Adding that strip is a small piece of work with a large effect. We would rather fit it and check the hangers while the ladder is up than come back in February to trace a leak that only shows when the wind is from the west.