One Thursday in July 2023 I drove out to Rangiora to look at a roof that had, according to the owner, started leaking in three places overnight. It had not rained. It had snowed, about 180 mm of the wet, heavy kind that Canterbury gets when a southerly meets moist air off the sea. The
Snow on Canterbury Roofs: Loads, Drifts and Where the Water Goes When It Melts Read More »
The hail came through Bishopdale on a Sunday afternoon in late November, ten minutes of marble-sized stones ahead of a nor’west front, and my mother rang from Harewood Road to say her roof sounded like a drum kit. By the time I got there the lawn was white and the long-run roof on her 1968
Hail Damage on Painted Steel: Cosmetic or Structural Read More »
My daughter bought a 1970s weatherboard house in Brooklyn, Wellington, in 2022, on the ridge above Ohiro Road where the southerly comes straight off Cook Strait. The first winter storm took a run of ridge capping off the garage and left three sheets on the main roof drumming loud enough to hear from the kitchen.
Wind Zones and Fixing Schedules: Roofs in Wellington’s Very High Wind Areas Read More »
The nor’wester of 10 September 2013 came through Christchurch with gusts recorded above 150 km/h, and in the five weeks after it I priced 63 roofs. Fifty-one of them had lost material at the ridge, not at the eaves where most owners expect wind to get under a sheet. A house on Hoon Hay Road
Nor’wester Uplift: Why Christchurch Roofs Lose Sheets at the Ridge First Read More »