Roofs, gutters and walls: the outside survival guide

Rain lands on the ridge, runs down the tiles, drops into the gutter, travels down the pipe and disappears into a drain. When everything works, you never think about it. Every outside problem in this guide, from a damp patch to a collapsed ceiling, is that journey going wrong at one specific point. Find the point, and the fix is usually smaller than you fear.

The twice-a-year inspection, feet on the lawn

You never need to go up to look at a roof, and you should not. A pair of binoculars or your phone camera on full zoom sees everything that matters from the ground. Fifteen minutes in spring, fifteen in autumn, plus a walk-round after any named storm. Take photos from the same spots each time; comparing this year to last is how you spot slow movement.

A tile lying on the lawn is your roof sending a memo. After wind, slipped and missing tiles show up as dark rectangles against the rest of the roof, and they are cheap to fix now, expensive to ignore until the ceiling stains.

The roof: tiles, flat sections and chimneys

A pitched roof is a layered defence. Tiles shed almost all the water; the felt or membrane underneath catches the small amount that gets past. One missing tile matters because it puts the felt on full-time duty, and on older roofs that felt is brittle, torn or holed. That is why a single slipped tile deserves a roofer within weeks, not years.

Flat roofs age on their own schedule. Traditional felt gives you 15–20 years, rubber and fibreglass systems considerably longer, and almost all flat roof trouble starts with blocked outlets or standing water. The flat roof guide gives the materials an honest comparison and explains when a patch beats a re-cover.

Chimneys are the tallest, most weathered and least examined part of the house. Through binoculars, check the mortar cap (the flaunching), the pots, and the lead flashing at the base. If damp appears on a chimney breast indoors, failed flashing is the prime suspect, and as a guide that repair runs £400–£800. If you burn wood, the flue itself needs an annual rhythm of its own, covered in the chimney and log burner guide.

And if water is coming through a ceiling right now, stop reading surveys and go to what to do about a roof leak. Short version: bucket underneath, one small hole in the bulge to drain it, lights off in that zone.

Gutters and walls: where damp gets made

Gutters are the cheapest insurance the house has. When they block, water sheets down the brickwork instead of leaving politely, and a saturated wall is how penetrating damp starts. Tide marks, green streaks and drips during rain are the tells. The gutter guide covers the safe-DIY line: single-storey runs you can reach with proper ladder discipline are a homeowner job, anything higher is a professional with vacuum poles or the right access kit.

Walls fail slower. Pointing erodes, render cracks, window cills stop throwing water clear. The result is penetrating damp: a patch that appears inside a day or so after heavy rain. The rule that saves money: fix the outside first, redecorate the inside second, never the other way round. The wider damp and mould guide helps you tell rain damp from condensation before anyone sells you a treatment.

Cracks deserve calm. Most are plaster and paint doing seasonal stretches. The four that earn a surveyor: stepped cracks following mortar lines in brickwork, anything wider than 5mm, doors that suddenly stick, or a crack visible on both sides of a wall. The cracks guide includes the pencil-and-photo monitoring routine.

The boundary: fences, trees and uninvited lodgers

Fences generate more neighbourly folklore than any other structure. Ownership lives in your title deeds (look for the T marks), not in the popular myth about always owning the left-hand side. And insurance almost never pays for blown-down fences, which is why the fence repair guide starts with the post, not the panel.

Trees and hedges come with rules attached. You can cut overhanging branches back to the boundary, but you must check for Tree Preservation Orders and conservation-area status before touching anything, and active nests are legally protected, so roughly Feb–Aug is trimming-with-care season. The full rights and responsibilities are in the trees, hedges and storms guide.

The same envelope that keeps rain out keeps wildlife out. Gaps around pipes, broken airbricks and worn door seals are how mice arrive each autumn; a mouse needs a gap about the width of a pencil. The pest guide is mostly about sealing, because exclusion beats extermination every time.

The inside keeps score, too. Seasonal moisture swings make timber move, which is why autumn so often brings new creaks in floors and stairs. A dry, well-drained envelope is the quiet-house setting.

Storm season: before and after

Each autumn, photograph the outside of the house from all four corners. If a storm damages something, those photos prove the roof was sound beforehand, which is exactly the argument insurers have with claimants. Policies generally cover damage from a storm event; they do not cover wear and tear, and they rarely cover fences at all. Evidence, dated, wins.

Hiring a roofer without the anxiety

Roofing quotes vary wildly for one honest reason: access. A job done from a roof ladder costs a fraction of the same job needing scaffold, and the scaffold quote is not automatically the con. Ask every roofer for photos of the actual damage (camera poles and drones make this routine now), get two or three quotes for anything beyond a few tiles, and be suspicious of anyone who diagnoses a whole new roof from the pavement.

The DIY line outside is drawn by height. Ground-reach jobs (single-storey gutters, sealing gaps, painting what you can touch, monitoring cracks) are yours. Everything above that belongs to someone with the right access kit and insurance. That is not caution for its own sake; falls from ladders are the injury that fills A&E after every windy weekend.