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Chimney flashing leaks in Melbourne start at the saddle, the apron, or cracked mortar — not at a random tile in the field. Roof Revival Melbourne repairs and replaces those junctions citywide. A silicone smear is not a flashing. Brickwork that has failed may need a mason; the metal and the bed are the roof job.
Chimney flashing leaks in Melbourne start at the saddle, the apron, or cracked mortar — not at a random tile in the field. Roof Revival Melbourne repairs and replaces those junctions citywide. A silicone smear is not a flashing. Brickwork that has failed may need a mason; the metal and the bed are the roof job.
The money page is flashing repairs Melbourne. One chimney is not a whole-roof price. We expose the junction, replace or reform the metal, weather it in, and test. A coating on the field does not waterproof a stack. If the tiles are hard and the only opening is the chimney, the scope stays a flashing repair.
A chimney is a brick obstacle in a water plane. Melbourne rain does not fall straight down for long. A northerly dump or a southerly change drives it at the uphill face first. The saddle — sometimes called a cricket — is the small splitter on that uphill side. It can be a metal tray or a tiny tiled ridge. Its job is to break the sheet of water and send it left and right of the stack. When the saddle is flat, split, rusted through, or was never built, water sits against the brick and looks for the first opening.
The apron is the downhill flashing, dressed over the tiles below the stack so water leaving the chimney runs onto the tile, not under it. It fails when it is short, lifted by wind, or made of lead that has fatigued and split on the fold. Old lead can look complete from the driveway and be cracked on the hidden crease. A later iron apron that was face-fixed and expected to stay put by friction fails the same way, only faster.
The sides are soakers or step flashings, woven with the tiles and usually covered by a counter-flashing let into a mortar joint, or by a cement fillet. A tile swap years ago often pulls a soaker out. If it was never woven back, wind-driven rain runs sideways into the opening. That stain can appear a bay away from the stack, because water tracks along a batten before it drops. The drip is rarely a map of the hole.
Roof Revival Melbourne treats those four pieces as one junction: uphill saddle, two sides, downhill apron. We do not publish a cutting list or a chase depth. The repair is trade work — expose, replace or reform, weather in, test — written on the flashing scope after we are on the roof.
Two mortars get called “the chimney” and they are not the same leak. The fillet is the cement haunch at the base, smeared over the apron and up the brick. Melbourne summers cook it. Winter wet opens the crack. A hairline in that fillet is a path even when the metal underneath is still continuous. It is also a path when the metal underneath has already gone and the fillet has been doing the waterproofing by accident. Pointing over a dead apron is how the stain returns in the second winter.
The other mortar is the brick joint in the stack itself: spalled beds, a missing chimney cap, a pot that rocks, a flue that takes water and stores it. That water can show as a damp breast inside, sometimes in dry weather, with salts on the plaster. That is masonry. A rain-only drip in the ceiling near the stack, wet sarking on the uphill side, a split saddle you can see once you are up there: that is flashing. Both can be true on the same house. We will not repoint a breast and walk away from a split apron, and we will not pretend to be the bricklayer when the flue is the reservoir.
Cracked mortar at the base still gets photographed as its own line. If the fillet is the only failure and the lead is sound, the scope says so. If the fillet is hiding torn metal, we strip the cover and replace the flashing. Guessing from the lounge-room stain is how owners pay for the wrong trade.
The junction is citywide. The stock is not. Preston Edwardian and Federation roofs near High Street still carry decorative stacks on terracotta and early concrete. The tile body is often still sound. The leak is a saddle that was smeared over a decade ago, or an apron that no longer reaches the course below it. That is a flashing repair, not an automatic re-roof. Semis need the neighbour’s side considered for access. We do not invent a shared-wall agreement from the footpath.
Richmond terraces are tighter again. Laneways, party walls, original lead, and a stack that may sit on the boundary. Parking and a skip are part of the plan, not a surprise on the day. Wind up the lane drives rain into a joint that looks tidy from the street. The same pattern shows in Carlton, Fitzroy and Brunswick. It also shows on a 1960s chimney in Heidelberg and on a retained stack behind a new rear extension in Essendon, where the new plane meets old brick and the apron was never a real apron.
Eastern brick veneers that lost their stacks in a later reno leak somewhere else — ridge, valley, a skylight — and that is a different path. Bayside lead and galvanised aprons powder faster in salt air than an inland fillet. A new estate in the west rarely has a chimney at all. Roof Revival Melbourne still prices the chimney you have, in the suburb you have, after an on-roof look. Suburb name is not a quote.
Sealant over a tired apron lasts until the next hot week. Ultraviolet cooks the bead. Brick and tile move at different rates and the joint opens. The ceiling stain returns and the owner has paid twice. We do not publish a sealing recipe, and we will not sell one as a “temporary” that becomes the job. Lead or compatible metal, dressed into the junction and weathered over the tile, is the repair. If a previous smear is hiding the real edge, we remove it so the metal can be seen.
A wash does not close a split saddle. A membrane on the field does not climb a chimney and become an apron. Dirty flashing is not a coating job. If someone has offered to “paint the roof and seal the chimney” in one sentence, split that sentence before you sign. The paint is a face. The chimney is metal and mortar. Roof Revival Melbourne quotes them as separate lines when both are actually needed, and we drop the paint line when it is not.
We walk the roof and, where the manhole allows, the roof space. We look at the uphill saddle, both sides, the apron, and the fillet. We look for tracking: a wet batten, a stain on sarking that is not directly under the stack, a ceiling mark in the room beside the breast. We photograph the metal and the brick as separate subjects so a mason and a roofer are not arguing from one blurry frame.
The quote names access, storeys, tile or metal profile, and whether the flashing is reformed or replaced. A second stack is a second line. A party wall is called out because it changes how we stand and what we can open. If more of the roof is open — powder ridges, a tired valley, a field that is finished — we say that too, and we do not hide it inside a chimney price. If the field is sound, we do not inflate a stack repair into a full restore to make the invoice look like the neighbour’s.
Call 0426 516 883 or write info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au with suburb, storeys, and a photo of the stack from the ground plus the ceiling stain. We still inspect before we price. Water travels. The hole is rarely above the drip.
Send suburb, storeys and two roof photos. Roof Revival Melbourne — 0426 516 883 · info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au
