What's on Brunswick's roofs
Terraces and cottages from the boom
eMelbourne says the 1880s and 1890s brought modest brick terraces, single-fronted weatherboards and grander two-storey houses to central and south Brunswick. Melbourne's terrace designers deliberately hid the roof behind a decorative parapet.
Iron houses still standing
Prefabricated iron houses that brickmaker John Glew brought from England for his workers still stand in Brunswick Road.
Conservation precincts
Heritage buildings line Sydney Road, and urban conservation precincts cover whole streets or large parts of them.
Flats and terraces outnumber houses
At the 2021 Census, 34.1% of occupied dwellings were flats or apartments and 29.3% semi-detached, row or terrace houses, against 35.3% separate houses.
Flat, creek to creek
Brunswick itself is relatively flat, running between Merri Creek on the east and Moonee Ponds Creek on the west. Merri-bek says flash flooding risk is higher than average in some parts of the municipality.
The gutter you can't see
A box gutter is a gutter built into the roof itself. On a terrace it usually runs behind the parapet or between two houses. When leaves, silt or a dead bird block the outlet, the water has nowhere to go but inside, and it tends to show up as a stain on the ceiling just behind the front wall.
Older box gutter linings rust through, often at the joins. A roof plumber can reline the gutter, rebuild the outlet and add an overflow, so a future blockage spills outside instead of into your hallway. See roof plumbing in Melbourne and our page on box gutters.
On a single-fronted weatherboard, the usual jobs are rusty iron, loose fixings and the flashing where a rear extension meets the old roof. If the iron has rusted through in a lot of places, a replacement beats patching.
What you can do, and what needs a roofer
You can
- Note where and when water appears after rain, with photos
- From the ground, check the rear downpipe runs freely in heavy rain
- Ask neighbours along a terrace row whether they've had leaks in the same spot
- Ask council whether your street is in a conservation precinct before choosing new materials
Leave to a roofer
- Anything behind the parapet, including box gutter outlets
- Relining or replacing box gutters and flashings
- Re-roofing a cottage in iron
- Any sheeting that might contain asbestos
If it were our terrace
We'd have the box gutter and its outlet checked before chasing anything else, because it's the likeliest source of a leak near the front wall. If the lining is rusting at the joins, we'd reline it rather than patch it again. Tell us what's happening and your postcode, and we'll pass it to one licence-checked roofer for your area if we have one. If we don't, we'll say so and save you the wait.
Want a roofer to take a look?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match it with a Find My Roofer certified roofer who specialises in that kind of work, and they call you to quote. Your number goes to them alone.
