Drone roof survey in Seaton

Seaton has an unusually high proportion of post-war bungalows on the slopes behind the seafront, and bungalows built in the 1950s and 1960s tend to have shallow roof pitches. A shallow pitch relies far more heavily on every slate or tile doing its job, because there is less gravity helping the water off and more time for wind to push it back up under the lap.

Add a flat felt or single ply roof over the inevitable rear extension, and you have a building type that copes badly with the one thing Seaton has plenty of, which is horizontal rain.

The front rank of Victorian and Edwardian seafront terraces is a different problem again: taller, steeper, rendered, with parapets and bay roofs, and salt spray hitting them directly in any southerly blow.

There is very little between the beach and the first row of buildings in Seaton, and that shows in how quickly things corrode. Salt reaches metalwork constantly rather than occasionally, so gutter brackets, ridge clips, flashing fixings and nail heads all have a shorter working life here than the same components three miles inland at Colyton.

Because the beach is shingle rather than sand, strong onshore weather also throws grit as well as spray, which scours render and paintwork on exposed elevations and finds its way into gutters and valleys.

The Axe estuary to the east keeps the air damp between storms, so roofs stay wet for long periods and organic growth in the shaded lower courses is heavy.

On the bungalows the priority list is short and specific. Ridge and hip bedding, because uplift on a shallow pitch works hard on it. Verge condition at the gable, which is the first thing to go in an onshore gale. The junction where the flat extension roof meets the main slope, which is where two different materials and two different movements meet. And the state of the flat covering itself, particularly whether it is holding water.

On the seafront terraces the focus shifts to parapets, hidden gutters, rendered stack condition and the lead detailing round the bays.

Both benefit from being flown rather than climbed, but for opposite reasons: the bungalows because a roof three metres up still cannot be seen properly from the ground, and the terraces because the front elevation faces a public road and a beach.

Seaton's other landmark is the narrow gauge tramway that runs the length of the Axe valley to Colyton, and the wetlands either side of it flood readily in a wet winter. Properties on the lower ground near the estuary sit close to that flood plain as well as close to the sea, which means damp reaches a roof from two directions rather than one, and drying time between wet spells is shorter than a straight coastal comparison would suggest.