Enmore roof leaks usually start at the sump

Small blocks, continuous roofs

Enmore is tightly built. Between Enmore Road, Edgeware Road, Stanmore Road and the streets around Enmore Park and the Enmore Theatre, the housing is almost entirely attached — single-fronted workers cottages, Victorian terraces and semis in unbroken rows on narrow blocks.

Because the rows are continuous, the roofs are effectively one surface divided by party walls, drained by a small number of box gutters and downpipes. There is very little redundancy in that arrangement.

Our usual diagnosis

The call generally comes in as a ceiling stain, and the cause is generally drainage.

A box gutter sits between your parapet and the neighbours, falls gently to a sump, and discharges through one pipe at the rear. It is designed for a short, intense burst of rain, with a minimum 200 mm flat base on a home and 30 mm of freeboard held in reserve. Part-block the sump and that reserve is gone. The gutter fills, the water tops the back lip — the roof side, not the street side — and runs into the cavity above your ceiling.

Many Enmore gutters also have no independent overflow discharging to atmosphere, which is now standard practice under AS/NZS 3500.3. Without one, a blockage has nowhere to vent except inside.

What we fix here

• Clear and rebuild choked sumps and outlets
• Reline split or corroded box gutter linings
• Add a proper overflow device where the gutter is being rebuilt
• Reform party-wall and parapet flashings
• Recap and repair cracked parapet cappings
• Replace slipped slates on the older rows

Box gutter and gutter work is the main service. If the source is not obvious, leak repair starts with tracing it.

Access

No setback, no side path, and a narrow lane at the rear if there is one at all. Scaffolding on two-storey work, possibly a footpath occupation, and material in through the house. The shared gutter sometimes has to be worked from next door, which means asking the neighbour before the scaffold goes up rather than after.

Around the corner

Newtown, Marrickville, Stanmore and Petersham — plus the rest of the area.

Arrange a free look

Call (02) 8000 1103 or ask for a free quote. No obligation.