Glass Fibre Roof Gully - any good, durability?

[Peter Hemmings]

Hi,

Just been in to price some lead for replacement roof gully and got shown some gray sheets to do the job at a large cost saving! I was told they are on most "New Builds" but he could not say how long they were likely to last. Has anyone got experience of these and what is the life expectancy likely to be?

Thanks

[BigWallop]

Glass-Fibre is being used more and more all over the world now. It's not just used in roofing projects either. It is robust enough to be used for water-proofing and structural repairs, and the new polymers they are bonded with are far more resistant to sunlight and acid rain than they used to be 10 or so years ago.

Lead is still an awful thing to use anywhere in the water cycle, and it poisons slowly and horribly, so getting rid of as much as possible of the stuff in the water system is always a good thing in my eyes.

[Dave Liquorice]

Hum, and the toxins from the manufacture of the polymers and the really rather nasty catalysts are safe and do not get into the enviroment?

Whole picture please.

[Dave Plowman]

Including out of the ground that rainwater filters through? If lead was so soluble in water, it wouldn't last very long as flashing, etc.

[Soup]

Soup popped his head over the parapet,saw what was going on and said

First of all I must say that I have no personnel experience of gully work but it was just on the telly ("sun, sand and scaffolding", Discovery H&L) were they said that gullies were now being made of GRP which was cheaper but just as long lived as lead.

[Soup]

Soup popped his head over the parapet,saw what was going on and said

Oh forgot to say this wasn't a "new build" rather an extensive renovation so fitting them doesn't seem a trivial job

[Set Square]

I had a gable-type extension built about 10 years ago - with the roof joined into the original roof using valley gutters. The builder used glass-fibre gulleys, which he assured me would be "better than lead". Unfortunately, they leaked - mainly because they pulled away where they were nailed to the support boards, leaving holes for the water to run through. The builder came back and repaired them a couple of times - but they still leaked, so I had them replaced with lead about 7 years ago and they've been fine ever since.

I accept that the problem *could* have been due to poor implementation rather than an inherent fault. Nevertherless, when I had a further extension built a couple of years ago (different builder!), I insisted that the valley gutters should be lead lined.

[N. Thornton]

I'm not familiar with the new grey sheets, but if it is fibreglass, FG lasts very well, even in marine environments. Maybe not a century like lead, but at least decades under plenty of physical stress, something your gullies wont see much of.

Regards, NT