Leadwork & Lead Valleys

Valleys, aprons, bays and parapets — the wider craft of lead on roofs.

Lead does more on a roof than flash its junctions. It lines valleys, covers bay window tops and porch roofs, and forms the parapet and box gutters that drain many Victorian and Edwardian houses behind their front walls. This is proper leadwork — a craft with its own rules — and when it's done wrong it fails in a predictable way: lead laid in over-long pieces with nowhere to move splits along the fold lines within a few years.

Because lead expands and contracts substantially with temperature, everything in good leadwork serves movement: pieces kept to maximum lengths, correct laps between them, fixings that hold without pinning, and expansion joints where runs are long. A fifty-year material becomes a five-year material when those rules are skipped — and much of our lead repair work is re-doing exactly that.

Box and parapet gutters deserve their own mention: hidden behind masonry, draining slowly, and catastrophic when blocked or split — the water has nowhere to overflow except into the house. If you own a house with one, it should be on an annual clearing rota.

Benefits

Why choose Leadwork & Lead Valleys

Correct lengths, laps and expansion — lead that lasts its full life
Bay tops and porch roofs renewed in traditional detail
Box and parapet gutters lined, repaired and maintained
Splits diagnosed honestly — patch versus renewal
Matching craft on period property

Features

What's included

Lead valley lining and renewal
Bay window and porch coverings
Parapet and box gutter linings
Lead welding for honest local repairs
Code 4–6 sheet work throughout

Repair options

Repair or replace

A single split in young lead — often the legacy of an over-long piece — can be lead-welded honestly. Multiple splits, or splits in lead decades old, mean fatigue: renewal is the repair that doesn\'t recur, and re-lining a bay top or gutter is a contained, well-defined job. For box gutters, half our call-outs end as clearing and minor work — damp after heavy rain at the front of an older house is very often a blocked parapet gutter, not a failed one.

Common questions

Frequently asked

Why did my "new" leadwork split after a few years? +

Almost certainly movement with nowhere to go — pieces too long, fixings too rigid, or laps wrong. Lead expands more than any other roof metal; the craft rules about lengths and joints aren't tradition for its own sake, they're what stops fatigue. The remedy is re-laying to the rules, not another patch.

My bay window ceiling is damp — is that the lead top? +

A prime suspect: bay tops are small, low-pitched lead or felt coverings with tight junctions to the wall above, and both the covering and its flashing age faster than the main roof. It's a contained repair — and one worth doing promptly, since bay timbers are slow to dry once soaked.

What's the white coating on new lead? +

Patination oil — applied to fresh lead so it weathers evenly instead of streaking white carbonate over the tiles and brickwork below. Cosmetic, cheap, and its absence is a small tell about the care taken with the rest of the job.