Dulwich Hill roofing: tiled hips, ridge pointing and leaf load

Inter-war brick, and plenty of it

Dulwich Hill reads differently to the terrace suburbs north of it. Walk back from the New Canterbury Road shops, around Johnson Park, or up from the Arlington light rail stop on the old goods line, and the dominant stock is inter-war and Federation brick — bungalows and semis with eaves, tiled hip and gable roofs, and a terracotta or concrete covering that is now somewhere between eighty and a hundred years old.

There are terraces too, particularly closer to the Marrickville boundary, but this is largely a tiled suburb. That makes it one of the parts of the Inner West where roof restoration is genuinely the right call rather than an upsell.

The faults that come up

Ridge and hip pointing is the main one. The mortar bedding those caps cracks and crumbles with age, and once it has gone water tracks straight under the caps and into the roof. Rebedding and repointing fixes it; spraying over it does not.

After that:

• Valley irons rusted through under years of wet leaf litter
• Cracked and chipped tiles from foot traffic and antenna work
• No sarking at all, which is normal for the era
• Eaves gutters rusted at the joints, or hung with no fall
• Downpipes blocked where the gutter meets a verandah return

The established street trees through here are the quiet culprit behind most of it. A valley that never dries out rusts from beneath.

Two storeys and a narrow side path

Most of Dulwich Hill has side access, which keeps the cost of a roof job down considerably compared with a Newtown terrace. Where a two-storey addition has been built to the boundary, scaffolding comes back into it, and we flag that at the inspection.

Also covering

Marrickville, Petersham, Summer Hill and Hurlstone Park — see the full suburb list.

Get a free assessment

Call (02) 8000 1103 or ask for a quote. Free inspection, written quote, and a written workmanship warranty on completed work.