Roof restoration
The full job on a tiled roof, done in the right order. Free inspection first, so you find out whether you actually need one.
Free inspection first, then a fixed price
Roofshelter · Sydney
Roofing in the Inner West of Sydney
Older housing stock, older roofing materials, and failure modes you simply do not meet out west. Slate, Marseille terracotta, box gutters and parapets.
5.0
Google reviews
Based in Rosehill
Open 24 hours
Why Inner West roofs are a different job
Go east of Strathfield and the housing stock changes decades. Federation and Victorian terraces, California bungalows, interwar brick. The roofs on them are slate, Marseille pattern terracotta, and early concrete tile, and a good number of them are on their original material.
Slate is the one that catches people out. A slate roof does not usually fail because the slate wears out — slate outlasts almost everything — it fails because the nails holding it corrode. That is called nail sickness, and the symptom is slates sliding out of the roof one at a time with no obvious damage to the slate itself. Replacing slipped slates without addressing the fixings is a treadmill.
Then there are box gutters and parapets, which barely exist on a Parramatta brick veneer and are everywhere on a terrace. A box gutter runs *inside* the building line, so when it blocks or its fall is wrong, the overflow goes into the house rather than over the edge of it. Parapet flashings and the lead work around them are the other classic Inner West leak, and both are repairs rather than re-roofs.
Heritage matters here too. Conservation areas through Haberfield, Balmain and parts of Ashfield place real constraints on what a roof can be replaced with, which is another reason repair-first is usually the right answer in this part of Sydney.
What fails on an Inner West roof
- Slipped slates and nail sickness Slates sliding out with no damage to the slate. The fixings have corroded, and that is a different repair to simply putting the slate back.
- Box gutter overflow Inside the building line, so it presents as a ceiling leak with no visible roof damage. Urgent, and almost always fixable without touching the rest of the roof.
- Parapet and lead flashing failure Where the roof meets a rendered or brick parapet wall. Old lead work moves and lifts.
- Cracked Marseille terracotta and failed pointing Terracotta is more brittle underfoot than concrete and needs matching replacements, so it is a slower, more careful job than the same work out west.
Suburbs
Where we work around the Inner West
- Concord
- Concord West
- Strathfield
- Burwood
- Croydon
- Ashfield
- Summer Hill
- Haberfield
- Five Dock
- Drummoyne
- Canada Bay
- Rhodes
- Mortlake
- Cabarita
- Leichhardt
- Balmain
- Rozelle
What we do
Every job, in the Inner West.
All of it starts the same way: someone gets on the roof before a price is discussed. See all ten services.
Ridge re-bedding and re-pointing
The most common repair on a Sydney tile roof, and very often the entire fix. From $800.
From $800
Roof leak detection and repair
We find where the water gets in, not where the stain appears. Those are almost never the same place.
Free inspection · we show you the entry point
Roof replacement and re-roofing
When the tiles themselves are finished, or you want the weight off the frame. Free inspection first, because a lot of roofs quoted for replacement do not need it.
Free inspection first, then a fixed price
Roof painting and sealing
Three coats, over a roof that has been cleaned and repaired first. Not a colour change on top of a problem.
Quoted once the roof is clean and sound
High pressure roof cleaning
Moss, lichen and the black weathering that holds moisture against the tile. It comes off before anything else happens.
Usually a day, and it comes before any coating
Do you work on slate roofs?
Yes. The important thing with slate is diagnosing whether you have a slate problem or a fixings problem — slates slipping out undamaged means the nails have corroded, and repointing individual slates without dealing with that just moves the issue along the roof. The inspection tells you which you have.
My terrace leaks but the roof looks fine from the street.
That is the signature of a box gutter or a parapet flashing, both of which sit where you cannot see them from the ground. It is also why these get misdiagnosed as needing a new roof. Neither is a re-roof job.
Are you far from the Inner West, being based in Rosehill?
Concord, Strathfield and Burwood are a straightforward run east along Parramatta Road. Further into Leichhardt and Balmain we still come, but for an emergency at 2am the honest answer is that someone closer will be faster, and we will tell you that on the phone rather than after you have waited.
Find out what your roof actually needs.
Free inspection, photographs of every valley and ridge, and a written answer about whether you are looking at a repair or a replacement.
The phone is answered 24 hours, including weekends.