Roof inspection in Exmouth

Exmouth sits at the mouth of the estuary with nothing between the seafront and the Channel, and a south-westerly arrives here at full strength carrying salt several times most winters. Properties along the front and up the hillside at Foxholes Hill take the worst of it, but salt reaches well into the town on a strong blow, which makes Exmouth a different inspection to anywhere inland in Exeter's own districts.

The town's growth away from the immediate seafront, into more sheltered streets further back, gives a genuine range of exposure within a fairly small area, and knowing which part of town a property sits in matters more here than in most inland towns.

Salt attacks metal fixings first: nail heads, clout fixings, ridge clips and the fixings on a lead flashing corrode measurably faster here, and the visible failure, a slipped slate or a lifted ridge tile, arrives years after the fixing underneath has already quietly rusted through. That makes fixing condition, not just covering condition, the priority check on an Exmouth roof.

Wind uplift on ridges, hips and particularly verges is the second consideration, highest exactly where the bedding is oldest, and Exmouth loses ridge tiles most winters on properties where the bedding has never been checked.

Metal rainwater goods, where they have not already been replaced with plastic, are worth their own check here too, since cast iron guttering corrodes at a similar rate to roof fixings in this exposure and a rusted-through section can fail without much warning.

Seafront apartment blocks carry flat roofing and parapets facing full salt exposure with parapet gutters nobody can see into from any window in the building. Further up the hill, Victorian and Regency villas carry slate on steep, ornate pitches. A large share of Exmouth's inspections are booked for owners who live elsewhere: nothing about the visit needs anyone present, and a report a year apart from the last one shows whether a problem is spreading or holding steady.

For a seafront or holiday let property, booking an inspection at the end of winter is a useful habit: it captures what the season's storms have done before the busier letting months begin.

Given how many Exmouth inspections are booked by owners living elsewhere, the report is written and delivered by email as standard, with nothing that requires the owner to be in Devon to receive or act on it.

For a seafront apartment block with several leaseholders, it is worth agreeing in advance who the report should be addressed to, since a parapet gutter finding usually needs sharing with the whole block rather than a single flat.

Exmouth's range of exposure between the open front and the more sheltered streets behind it means a note on the exact address helps set realistic expectations for how urgent any fixing-related finding is likely to be before the visit even takes place.

For an absent owner, the report is often the only direct view they get of the roof all year, and it is written accordingly, plain enough to act on from a distance and specific enough to brief a local roofer without a second visit to establish what was actually found.