Faulconbridge roofs on the edge of the national park

Houses in among the trees

Faulconbridge sits at about 450 metres, in the band where the lower mountains start turning into the mid mountains. Frost begins to be a regular winter event here rather than an occasional one, and the canopy closes in.

It is a suburb of bush blocks. Jackson Park with its Corridor of Oaks, the Norman Lindsay Gallery grounds at the end of Chapman Parade, Ticehurst Park with its rock carvings, Clarinda Falls, and streets named out of The Magic Pudding — Bill Barnacle Avenue, Watkin Wombat Way. Plenty of properties back directly onto Blue Mountains National Park.

(02) 4703 5000 gets you a free inspection and a written quote.

The roof-edge conversation

On a block with bush on the boundary, the most consequential part of your roof is the 150 millimetres at the edge of it. Gutters full of dry eucalypt leaf and bark are a drainage problem and an ember problem at the same time, and with the NSW Rural Fire Service describing this district as one of the most bush fire prone in the state, that is a practical matter rather than a theoretical one.

Where a Bushfire Attack Level applies under AS 3959, the roof requirements include full sarking, a sealed roof-to-wall junction, non-combustible ember guards at openings and penetrations, and metal gutters. A leaf guard and a certified ember guard are not the same product, whatever the packaging says — we will show you what any product is actually certified to do and what your BAL assessment requires.

And the ordinary wear

Underneath all that it is still a roof at 450 metres with trees over it:

• Valleys packed with bark, then corroded through underneath
• Broken tiles from limbs coming down in wet, windy weather
• Moss starting to establish on shaded southern pitches
• Ridge pointing beginning to crack as the frost cycles increase
• Fascia rot behind gutters that have been holding wet litter for years

Nearby

Springwood is immediately east, Linden next west, and Winmalee sits to the north. Useful pages: gutter repair and replacement and storm and emergency roof repairs. Full list: where we work.