Does a roof inspection include gutters and chimneys?

A chimney is a hole through the roof, dressed with a collar of waterproofing. Water treats every junction as a target, and the stack has more of them than any other part of a pitched roof. Even where the chimney no longer serves a fire, the stack still has to shed rain, so it stays on the checklist.

We look at the brickwork for loose or crumbling mortar joints, cracked or flaking faces and any lean. We check the flaunching, the sloped mortar fillet that seats each pot, which keeps it fixed and sheds rain off the top. We look at the pots themselves and any cowl fitted over them. A cracked flaunching lets water run down the flue, and the first sign of it may be a damp, stained patch on the wall in a room below.

At the foot of the stack sits the leadwork: the flashings along the sides, the apron at the front, the gutter behind and the soakers, which are small pieces of lead tucked under each course of tiles. Together they seal the gap between brick and roof. We look for lifted edges, splits in the lead, missing pointing along the top edge and old sealant smeared on where lead should have been dressed.

Lead lasts a long time, but it fails at the joints and where the pointing falls out. A loose flashing often shows up as a brown stain on the ceiling nearby. Our page on chimney repairs covers the work that follows if a stack needs attention, and what that work involves from the first visit.

Gutters sit at the foot of the roof, and when they fail they soak the wall below. A survey looks for sagging runs, open joints, cracked sections, leaks at the corners and the stopped ends. A gutter that overflows at the front in heavy rain is blocked or set at the wrong fall.

We also look at the outlets and downpipes, where leaves and moss collect, and whether the water reaches a drain at the bottom. Plants growing from a gutter, stains on the wall below and green algae on the brick all tell the story. A clear-out is sometimes the whole job, and we tell you when it is. See also the autumn roof check for what to watch before the wet season begins.

The fascia carries the gutter along the eaves. The soffit closes the gap underneath the overhang, where the rafters end. Both are checked for rot, splits, peeling paint, loose fixings and gaps where birds or insects can get in. A soft fascia board may mean a gutter has been leaking behind it for some time, which makes the gutter fault more serious than it looked.

On older houses, some soffit panels contain asbestos insulating board, which looks much like modern board. The HSE guidance is to treat a building built or refurbished before 2000 as one that may hold asbestos, so we do not drill, sand or break such panels until the material is known. Our guide to a roof asbestos check explains how this is handled.

Findings on the chimney and the eaves go in the report with the rest, each with a picture and a position, such as the front-left gutter joint or the south face of the stack. Where one cause shows in two places, say a blocked outlet and a stained wall beneath it, we link them so the cause is fixed once and the repair does not need repeating a season later.

Small jobs found on the way, like a loose gutter bracket, are listed and included in the one written quote, so you decide what to do in a single go. Anything urgent is flagged first. Tell us if a particular stain or drip is what worried you, and we will make sure the report answers that point directly.

A survey sees what it can safely reach. We cannot judge the inside of a flue without a camera, or the state of a chimney breast that is plastered over. A box gutter hidden behind a parapet, or a valley gutter buried between two roofs, may need access equipment before it can be read properly.

If something needs a closer look, we state what we could not see and what would settle it. You then receive photographs of the findings and a plain answer on whether the stack and the roofline need work, so nothing is left to your imagination. If they do, a written quote follows at one total price. Learn more on the roof inspections and surveys page, which sets out the whole visit.