Roofing

One desk for the covering

A leaking ceiling is often the moment a household decides it “needs a roofer.” Sometimes that is exactly right. Sometimes the stain is a failed gutter, a crack in a concrete upstand, or water that came up from a flooded compound and was blamed on the sheet. Micheletti Construction reads roofing requests itself. The form can start with roofing and then with the problem: a leak, storm damage, rust, an old covering, a new roof, or an inspection because you are not sure.

The detailed pages are repairs,replacement, new roofs,metal roofing, and inspections. They are written in the company’s voice. They are not the long national essays of a lead portal, and they do not pretend a stock photograph is a finished Micheletti roof.

Three rains, not one paragraph

Lagos is coastal. Studies of the city’s climate put annual rainfall above 1,800 millimetres at Ikeja, with the wet months running roughly April to October and a short August lull before the rains return. Salt air on Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki, and Ajah attacks fasteners and cut edges. A roof quote that never asks how close the house is to the water is incomplete.

Abuja’s rain is a single season, about April to October, heaviest in late summer, with annual totals often described in the 1,100 to 1,600 millimetre range. The harmattan that follows loads gutters with dust. The first storm of the year is a test of outlets, not only of sheets. Tiles and long-span metal are both ordinary conversations, and some newer houses use a flat concrete roof that ponds if the falls are shy.

Ibadan shares the southwest pattern: a long wet season from about March to October, an August lull, peaks near June and September, and a mean annual rainfall in one cited study of about 1,420 millimetres. The distinctive problem is less salt than age. Sheets in Bodija, Jericho, and the university-edge neighbourhoods have often been patched until the patch is doing the work of a roof. Another dab of sealant is not a specification.

What we ask before we talk about materials

Storey height, because scaffold and wind both grow with it. How a vehicle gets to the eaves. Whether the house is occupied. Whether the ceiling is already stained, and in which rooms. Whether anyone has been onto the roof in the last year. A phone photo of the stain and, if it is safe, of the slope, is welcome. Climbing an unknown sheet in the rain is not something we ask a client to do for the sake of the form.

Materials — long-span aluminium, stone-coated metal, a remaining run of older corrugated sheet, concrete tiles — are a conversation after the deck and the flashings are understood. We do not lead with a gauge number as a slogan. Gauge, coating, and fastener are specified for the job, and a number copied from a manufacturer’s advert would be someone else’s marketing, not our quote.

Timing is the other half. Emergency means water is in the building now. “Next few weeks” and “planning” are different kinds of programme. In the south, we will say if the August lull is a false friend. In Abuja, we will say if the job wants the dry months. None of those sentences is a promise that a crew is free on a named morning. The thank-you page does not book a time.

If the building itself is in question as well as the covering, start frombuilding or choose “not sure” on the quote form.