Brooklyn's ridge takes the full southerly, and roofs pay for it.

Wind exposure decides what we look for in Brooklyn.

We inspect and assess roofs right across Brooklyn, from the village shops on the ridgeline down the streets that spill toward Aro Valley and Ohiro Road, up the steep hill runs and out to the exposed homes near the wind turbine. The job is straightforward: we get a proper look at the roof, then set down what we find in a written assessment letter. When a roof sits too steep or too exposed to reach safely from the ground, we fly in and photograph the detail up close by drone.

Brooklyn's defining feature for roofing is exposure. The suburb sits at altitude on a ridge that catches the full southerly straight off the south coast. Roofs here cycle harder than almost anywhere else in Wellington. Plenty of Brooklyn roofs are in good shape; the wear patterns are different, and so are the things we look for compared with a sheltered inner suburb.

Brooklyn roofs run the full mix, long-run metal, tile, decramastic and membrane, and each one fails in its own way under this much wind. We identify what's up there and tell you what the wear likely means for a roof that gets cycled this hard.

What we typically find on Brooklyn roofs

• Lifted ridge cap pointing, especially on the older tile roofs along the windward (south-facing) slopes. Wind cycling slowly works ridge mortar loose.
• Slipped tiles after big southerlies, often one or two tiles at the worst-exposed corner of the roof.
• End-of-row screw and clip wear on long-run metal roofs. Wind suction concentrates at the edges, and that's where fixings tire first.
• Flashing fixings worked loose around chimneys, dormers and parapets, particularly on heritage homes near Brooklyn Hill.
• Coating wear on weather-facing slopes of decramastic and older long-run metal roofs.
• Aged underlay on the original villa-era homes, often visible from inside the roof space.
• Moss and lichen on the more sheltered north slopes, particularly under tree cover near the town belt.

Hill sections, steep roofs, and wind.

Brooklyn is one of the suburbs where "the roof was not accessed" turns up most often in building reports. Hill-section homes are often two storeys above ground on the downhill side, the pitches are typically steep, and many of the older homes have fragile tile that is easily damaged. None of those problems go away if you send a bigger ladder.

A drone gets us there safely. We fly in close from several angles and photograph the ridges, chimney flashings, valley boards and parapets from the air, including the steep, high and fragile areas that are hard to reach from the ground. For Brooklyn's exposed hill sections, that lets us document the ridge caps, end-of-row fixings and parapet flashings up close from the air, high on pitches a ground-level look never reaches.

For more on this, see our guide on why building inspectors can't access steep Wellington roofs.