Hi all,
New poster here – I am the first to admit I am not a “handy” person. I recently entered into contract on a home with a slate roof, and was surprised to find multiple strips of (tar?) adhesive at the ridge along many tiles. The inspector stated that this was likely due to a prior leak, but couldn’t comment much more than that. Photos attached.
I am trying to understand: 1. What exactly the purpose of adhesive at the roof ridge is? 2. Whether I need to replace/repair this or do anything else? and 3. What the cost would be to do so?
Thank you all so much for your help!
Replies
There are slates missing, and it appears that the required copper or lead flashing was never installed. It needs reparing.
How it should have been done: http://www.slateroofcentral.com/install_hips_ridges.htm
http://www.traditionalroofing.com/TR8_ridge.html
Slate is labor intensive, repair will not be cheap.
If done right, it should last your lifetime without further maintenance.
I'll take a shot in the dark and guess that those are used slates, nothing wrong with that, that was done by the homeowner. Normally slate is oriented with the narrow dimension up. Yours are installed in landscape mode if you will. The ridges should have had a cap of copper or lead but it doesn't look like there was ever any there. I can't believe your inspector had no more to say about it. As cat said, it has to be repaired and I imagine other issues will come up once you have an expert on the roof. Make sure you hire someone who works with slate, not just a roofer.
Thanks for the replies guys. Obviously impossible to accurately estimate repair cost without seeing the roof itself, but any ballpark estimates (this is in Ohio)?
Figure out how many feet of peak you have and make a few calls.
I don’t think the roofing tar is necessarily the problem, but looks like they only fastened those slates on the ridge with a single nail, causing them to swing down. It’s difficult to tell from the pictures. My house was done similarly under architect supervision in the 30’s, though not quite as sloppy. I attached a picture to show how my roof looks. With that house, I would probably have someone come out to reposition those shingles closer together towards the peak with some overlap on top and fasten them properly...or price out a cooper cap. I wouldn’t think it would be terribly expensive either way.