Saddell House, Saddell Estate | Restoration Case Study

Our role: Main contractor
Client: The Landmark Trust
Architect: Gillian Murray Building Surveying (contract administrator)
Value: Under £0.5m
Programme: September 2014 (30 days)
Scope: Lead flat roofs, dormer leadwork, valleys, ridges, slating

Saddell House was built in 1774 on the east coast of the Kintyre peninsula, close to the shore, and refitted in the early 1900s after a serious fire. Category B listed and let by The Landmark Trust as a holiday home, it needed the second phase of a programme to renew its failing lead roofs. We carried out the work as main contractor, including the contractor's design of all lead sheet roofing.

The challenge

The lead flat roofs, dormer coverings, valleys and a dog-leg lead downpipe had failed, and water was getting into the house. The work had to be completed in a single 30 day window while the house was closed to guests, on a remote estate reached over a narrow hump-back bridge, with five neighbouring holiday lets occupied throughout. Hot works were not permitted within 3 metres of the building and no scaffold could be fixed into the historic fabric.

Our solution

We stripped flat roofs FR2, FR4 and FR5 back to the deck and relaid them in Code 8 and Code 10 lead on new tapered redwood rolls over geotextile underlay, reforming the wall-head gutters with new outlets and welded box-section overflows through the parapets, and overcladding the FR5 parapet in Code 6 lead secured with copper strip. On dormers 2 and 5 the cheeks, roofs and watergates were renewed in Code 6 with Code 5 ridges to Lead Sheet Association practice, while the Trust's estate joiner repaired the sashes, facings and rotten sarking. Ridges and the valley between the slated pitches were renewed, slates relaid around the dormers with damaged slates replaced to match, and the failed lead downpipe was repaired in situ through the masonry under an approved hot work permit.

Outcomes

Watertight again

Failing lead roofs, gutters and the leaking downpipe renewed, stopping water ingress to the house.

Completed on time

Practical completion on the contract date of 30 September 2014, ready for the house to reopen to guests.

Detailed to last

Heavier Code 8 and Code 10 lead on new rolls, with improved overflows and parapet protection.

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