One suburb, five roofing eras.
Karori is Wellington's largest suburb by some way, and we work every corner of it: the older homes down near Karori Road and the mall, the streets climbing toward Wrights Hill and Makara Peak, and the newer builds tucked against Zealandia and the town belt. We go over the roof areas we can safely reach, put the drone up for anything too steep or high to reach from the ground, and follow up with a written assessment letter and photos.
On any given week in Karori, we'll assess a villa-era home with original concrete or terracotta tile, a 1970s bungalow with decramastic pressed-metal tile, a more recent build with long-run Coloursteel, and a renovation with a small butynol or WeldTech section over a rear extension or dormer. We're set up for all of them.
Reading that spread of roofs is exactly the work we're set up for. Terracotta and concrete tile, decramastic pressed metal, long-run steel and butynol or TPO membrane each fail in their own way, and Karori is one of the few suburbs where all of them turn up within a few streets. Working out what is actually on the roof comes before anything else, because a comment on condition is only worth reading once you know the system you're looking at.
What we typically find on Karori roofs
- Tile pointing failure on ridges and hips, especially on the older concrete and terracotta tile roofs. Loose or cracked pointing is the single most common Karori finding.
- Lifted or slipped tiles from decades of Wellington wind cycling. Often individual tile repairs rather than whole-roof concerns.
- Moss and lichen growth, particularly on south-facing roof slopes that get less sun.
- Aged underlay on villa-era roofs, visible at eaves and sometimes from inside the roof space.
- Flashing deterioration around dormers, chimneys, and roof penetrations on older homes.
- Stone-chip loss on weather-facing surfaces of decramastic roofs from the 70s-90s era.
- Membrane condition on the small flat-roof sections common on rear extensions, decks, and dormer roofs.
Why Karori building reports skip the roof: A lot of Karori sits on steep hill sections, and a lot of it is under old, brittle tile that cracks if it is leaned on wrong. Put the two together and most building inspectors won't go up there, so the report comes back reading "the roof was not accessed" or "engage a licensed roofer". That separate roofer's assessment is the exact gap we fill.