Roofing & Waterproofing in Leaside

Leaside's houses were built well: solid brick, sound masonry chimneys, and roof framing sized with a margin to spare. That quality is the reason so many of them have been kept and renovated rather than replaced, and it is also why the roof work they need now has to be done with the same care. A well-built 1930s house deserves counterflashing let into the masonry and step flashing woven into the courses, not a bead of caulking run along the brick.

We match materials to the house, protect the finishes and gardens around the work, and keep owners informed at each stage. Where original copper or slate details survive, we repair them in kind. Where a slope needs replacing, the written estimate explains why, what the deck is likely to need once the old layers are off, and how the new roof will tie into any additions.

Most Leaside jobs happen on houses that are lived in and often recently renovated, so the way the work is run matters as much as the work itself. We give a written estimate before anything starts and never quote by phone, because a price given without seeing the roof or the basement is only a guess. Staging, bin placement, and daily cleanup are agreed in advance, and interior finishes near the work are protected before anything is opened up.

When the job is done we walk through it with you, and you keep the written report with dated photos of what was found and what was replaced, including the flashing and membrane that end up hidden under the finished roof. If a question comes up months later, call us, and the report means we can answer it from the record rather than from memory.

A Leaside basement often looks like the newest part of the house. It was finished during a renovation with new drywall, flooring, and lighting, while the foundation wall behind it and the clay drainage tile at the footing stayed exactly as they were built in the 1930s or 1940s. When that original drainage silts up or collapses, water shows up in the most expensive room in the house, usually after a heavy rain.

We start by finding out how the water is getting in. On most Leaside streets it is surface water sent to the wall by downspouts, window wells, or settled grading, and correcting those can be enough on its own. Where the drainage has failed or the foundation has cracked, we propose crack injection, interior drainage with a sump pump, or exterior waterproofing, with the extent of any finish removal written into the proposal.