Storm damage roof inspection in Salcombe

Salcombe sits on very steep ground at the mouth of the Kingsbridge estuary, with houses stacked up the hillside above the water and Bolt Head's cliffs immediately to the west, giving the town very exposed south-facing exposure to salt and wind-driven rain that arrives close to horizontal in a serious storm.

Alongside the Victorian and Edwardian villas on the slopes and the dense old core near the harbour, the town has a large number of contemporary architect-designed second homes, with flat roofs, roof terraces and large areas of glazing that a Victorian slate roof simply does not have to contend with.

North Sands and South Sands, either side of the harbour mouth, mark roughly where the most exposed properties sit, and Totnes, well up the estuary, is a noticeably calmer address for comparison when a claim needs to show just how much worse the weather is at the coast than a few miles inland.

Zinc and standing-seam metal roofing, common on the newer builds, is good in a storm when properly detailed, but the junctions between metal, glazing and a roof terrace balustrade are exactly where wind-driven rain finds a way in when a seal or a flashing has moved even slightly. Single-ply flat roofs on the same houses see membrane lift at parapet edges under sustained wind loading.

The older slate and slate-hung stock on the slopes fails in the more familiar pattern, ridges and verges loosening under uplift, but with the added detail that a hung slate lifting on a near-vertical elevation facing the harbour is very hard to spot from any angle a visitor on the water would actually see.

A significant share of Salcombe's contemporary housing stock is used seasonally, which means a storm that hits in winter can go unnoticed by an owner for months rather than weeks. A flown evidence pack, arranged by an agent or a keyholder, gives that owner a dated record from close to the actual event rather than a guess made on the next visit.

For the detailing risks specific to contemporary flat-roof and glazing construction, a close, referenced photograph of the actual junction that failed is worth considerably more to an insurer than a description over the phone from someone who has only seen the property from the water.

North Sands and South Sands, either side of the harbour mouth, take a noticeably different angle of the same south-facing exposure, and Overbeck's on the cliff above them sits close enough to several of the town's contemporary architect-designed houses that a flight covering one address easily takes in a neighbour. The TQ8 postcode is compact enough that a claim spanning more than one property rarely adds meaningfully to the visit.