Flashing Repairs Melbourne
Flashing repairs across Melbourne.
Flashing is the metalwork that seals every junction on your roof. Chimneys, skylights, walls, valleys and parapets. When it splits, lifts or rusts, water goes straight in. We repair and replace flashing properly, in Colorbond and Wakaflex.
Flashing Repairs in Melbourne
The junctions are where roofs leak.
What flashing actually does
Anywhere your roof meets something else, tiles and sheets alone cannot keep water out. Flashing is the shaped metal that bridges those junctions and directs water back onto the roof surface. When we trace a stubborn leak, the flashing is one of the first things we check, because a roof can be in perfect condition and still leak at a badly flashed junction.
The flashing types on a Melbourne roof
A typical home carries more flashing than most owners realise. Apron flashing runs across the base of chimneys and walls. Step flashing climbs the sides of brickwork, woven into the mortar courses. Valley flashing carries water where two roof planes meet. Wall and parapet flashing protect the junctions on terraces and homes with box gutters, and collar flashings seal around pipes, flues and vents. Each has its own way of failing.
Chimney and skylight flashing
Chimneys and skylights are our two most common flashing callouts. Old chimney flashing is often chased into mortar joints that have perished, so water tracks in behind it. Skylight flashing kits age with the unit, the seals perish and plenty were never installed quite right to begin with. In both cases the proper fix is to strip the junction and re-flash it, not to smear another tube of silicone over the top.
Where flashing fails
Corrosion is the big one, especially near the bay where salt air eats unprotected metal. Beyond rust, we see flashing lifted by wind, splits along the folds where the metal has fatigued, perished mortar where flashing is chased into brickwork, laps opened up by thermal movement, and old silicone repairs that have trapped water instead of shedding it.
Materials we use: Colorbond and Wakaflex
For straight runs and custom profiles we fold Colorbond steel to suit the junction, matched to the roof colour where it shows. Around chimneys and tiled junctions with awkward profiles we use Wakaflex, a lead-free self-adhesive flashing that moulds down onto the tile contour and stays put. Where we find old lead flashing we replace it with modern materials. The right product depends on the junction, and we will tell you which we are using and why.
How we repair flashing
We start by confirming the junction is actually the source, because flashing gets blamed for a lot of leaks it did not cause. Then we lift the surrounding tiles or sheets, remove the failed flashing, fit the new piece, chase it into mortar joints where the detail calls for it, dress it down properly and re-lay the roof over it. Where practical we water-test the junction before we leave.
What happens if it is ignored
Flashing leaks are sneaky. The water often runs down inside a wall cavity and shows up as a stain a metre or more below the roofline, or rots the timber top plates where no one sees it. What starts as a small piece of metalwork becomes replastering, repainting and carpentry. If a wall stains after rain, have the flashing above it checked.
Flashing work we do
Related services
Related reading
Signs your flashing has failed
How flashing problems show themselves.
Flashing Repairs FAQ
Questions about flashing repairs.
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