Lead soakers and flashing at abutment - can flashing lay over/on top of the slates as well?

[udaman]

Hi

My house needs some lead work at an abutment. The wall is stone (random rubble), so it's undulating rather than flat. Also, the wall is rather banana shaped. As such, I imagine the slates won't sit tight up to the wall and there will in fact be various size gaps between the slates and the wall, and these gaps will expose parts of the soakers beneath. I hope that all makes sense!

In all I've seen and read, flashing - when with soakers - tends to be just vertical. In my head it would make more sense to have an L shaped flashing given what I tried to describe above. If it was just vertical, it would almost encourage water into the gaps on onto the soakers. I appreciate that's what they are there for. But with an L shaped flashing, the horizontal section would direct water away from the gaps at the intersections, and onto the slates.

Just wondered what people's thoughts are on this please? As it's not commonly done like that, I just wanted to check I'm not overlooking something.

Many thanks

[Grendel]

Even if the wall is as flat as a piece of glass rain water will still get onto the soakers , that's pretty much how they work. You could make the flashing L shaped and overlap the slates if you wish , it's not really going to hurt but you will have to buy wider lead. It does mean expansion and contraction will be between two bends but it shouldn't be too much of a problem. You could of course trim the slates to the shape of the wall which would look neater. If I get round to putting up my porch I'll be using soakers and a vertical flashing , it's all sitting ready .

[udaman]

Thanks Grendel. Hopefully this nice weather is the sign of things to come for the summer, so you'll get plenty of chances to do your porch and leadwork :)

For mine... Having asked about and thought about this some more,  here's what I'm aiming for:

- Individual soakers beneath the slates, with 75mm upstands and 150mm horizontals.
- Slate and a halfs for every other slate, instead of using thinner cut slates.
- Flashing in lengths of 1100mm, with 150mm overlaps (so the actual exposed lengths will be 950mm; 4 of which fit the length of the roof perfectly.
- Flashing in upstand only, with NO horizontal pieces on top of the lead. I'll use 150mm width lead for that. So with 25-50mm in the chase, the remainder will be enough to cover the upstand of the soakers. And I won't be stepping the flashing - just straight lines parallel to the roof.

Does that all sound ok?

I think perhaps I was overthinking and over-engineering with my idea to have the Z shaped flashing so that a horizontal section could cover the slates. So I'll do without that now.  But for peace of mind I'll use slate and a halfs, and 150mm on the soakers (had originally planned for 100mm). That should keep water from reaching the end of the soakers and creeping in beneath them... Hopefully!

Many thanks