# Forum Home Renovation Roofing  Water issue with no eaves?

## HouseOB

Hi all, 
Just wondering if you don't have eaves on a colourbond roof, other than not being as good with shading in summer, are there any other disadvantages/risks?  (Such as water issues in heavy storms). 
Thanks

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## ringtail

Water issues in storms as you mentioned, Windows cop a flogging from the sun so paint suffers greatly on timber windows and rubber seals shrink on ally windows. 1 mt + eaves should be mandatory IMHO. I do quite a few repairs on 8-10 yo houses with no eaves. Water damage is the main one.

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## HouseOB

Is that because the gutters fill up and go back into the house?  With eaves it would normally just go on the eave area?  Our current eaves are only 450mm.

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## ringtail

No, the damage is on the ends of the building with no gutters - flat-ish roof in the latest case. So the roof fall is east to west and the north and south building faces are very ordinary. The east and west also get protection from neighbouring properties. The south is the worst on this particular house as it cops the full brunt of the summer storms and has big glass area. Bad design.

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## HouseOB

Hmm, so if you have a hip roof with no eaves but gutters all around, is it at higher risk from water coming into the house/ceiling than a house with eaves?

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## johnc

Much greater, most home with eaves will not get water back into the house although with some the window area can be an issue. Without eaves backed up gutters have nowhere to spread out.

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## Uncle Bob

There's really only one positive that I can think of about a place with no eaves.
That's you don't have to paint soffits  :Smilie:  
Ok there's another positive, the house will be cheaper to build.

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## HouseOB

Well the other advantage was that it looks better for this particular design :P 
I'll try and work them back in, will still only be 450mm, but better than nothing.

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## JB1

I think houses without eaves just look very ordinary. 
Eaves are useful in both summer and winter.  
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## METRIX

> I think houses without eaves just look very ordinary. 
> Eaves are useful in both summer and winter.  
> Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

  Agree, I have not seen any design which looks better without eaves, they all look cheap and nasty IMO. 
It's all about wanting the biggest house for the cheapest price, (typical project home formula)
If you do away with the eaves, you can move the building closer to the boundary, so that extra 450 per side which would normally be eaves is now building, team this up with shrinking block sizes and is why you can nearly touch the neighbors house from your window on the new housing estates. 
Biggest problem in Sydney is in the western suburbs where all the new housing estates are, they build these monstrosity houses with no eaves, then throw in a dirty big ducted aircon because the house is so unbearable to live in during the summer 30-40+ temperatures, overall an environmental disaster from inception. 
There should be mandatory minimum sized eaves / passive solar design implemented into every design, i'm sure your average person can do without that extra bit of room in their bathroom to put the HUGE spa bath which never gets used. 
One of our first houses was a split level design of the 80's with 4ft sloping eaves, the house always shaded the walls / huge glass windows in the summer, was always bright inside, and gave massive views to the outside, no such thing on the "modern" run of the mill project home.

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## ringtail

> Agree, I have not seen any design which looks better without eaves, they all look cheap and nasty IMO. 
> It's all about wanting the biggest house for the cheapest price, (typical project home formula) 
> There should be mandatory minimum sized eaves / passive solar design implemented into every design, i'm sure your average person can do without that extra bit of room in their bathroom to put the HUGE spa bath which never gets used. 
> One of our first houses was a split level design of the 80's with 4ft sloping eaves, the house always shaded the walls / huge glass windows in the summer, was always bright inside, and gave massive views to the outside, no such thing on the "modern" run of the mill project home.

  
That's why I can not bring myself to do new house work. I can't stand working on them let alone living in one, yet it is the way we are being pushed to build. All the energy efficiency measures may be totally applicable in some regions yet absurd in others. But we are all tarred with the same brush and pushed to build eskys with AC and no natural light or ventilation.

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## intertd6

> Hi all, 
> Just wondering if you don't have eaves on a colourbond roof, other than not being as good with shading in summer, are there any other disadvantages/risks?  (Such as water issues in heavy storms). 
> Thanks

   There shouldn't be any problems if it is built properly, there is one extra flashing that would be beneficial to prevent any water backflow  to the interior, the flashing runs up under the ends of the sheets from the fascia to a level somewhat above the front edge of the gutter, commonly used for box gutters, with high energy efficiency ratings which have to be achieved these days there should be no problems with that aspect, just cheaper to achieve on a roof with eaves.
regards inter

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## HouseOB

> There should be mandatory minimum sized eaves

  I agree that there should be efficiency requirements as a whole for houses (which there are), but I don't agree that you should be forced to have eaves.  There are plenty of houses around with eaves that have lower ratings than newer houses without eaves.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of those houses with no eaves that butt up right next to the neighbours house and go for maximum floor space, but not everyone is in that situation.  In our case we really just preferred the look of no eaves, and while 450mm eaves are better than nothing, they will only help so much. 
Having said that, I'm putting eaves back in because of the water concerns, not the energy stuff, we are doing other things for that.

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## jatt

I insisted on guttering with slots cut in the side for my extension cause it had no eaves.  The clowns obviously didnt listen cause when I rocked up to check on progress they had partially put up the other stuff. 
Dug my heels in and told em to change it, so they did.   
In designs with no eaves and std extern guttering I recon this should be mandatory.  
We dont get too many freak rain events here, but it only has to back flow into your walls once to do the damage.

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## johnc

> That's why I can not bring myself to do new house work. I can't stand working on them let alone living in one, yet it is the way we are being pushed to build. All the energy efficiency measures may be totally applicable in some regions yet absurd in others. But we are all tarred with the same brush and pushed to build eskys with AC and no natural light or ventilation.

  
A well designed modern home will have plenty of natural light and will not need airconditioning as much as an older home. I suspect what you mean is that the modern regulations whilst maintaining good energy efficiency can still achieve some pretty dumb design.

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## JB1

> A well designed modern home will have plenty of natural light and will not need airconditioning as much as an older home. I suspect what you mean is that the modern regulations whilst maintaining good energy efficiency can still achieve some pretty dumb design.

  +1 
This I where the benefits of custom designing your home is. 
While I can appreciate the workmanship of older homes (and I love the design of Victorian and Edwardian homes), they just aren't engery efficient or as bright compared to new homes. 
I haven't moved into my owner built home yet, but I'm already designing my new house. Will be influenced by the Victorian era. I will have 11ft ceilings on the bottom floor for sure if it will pass council.  
I'm excited about the build, I just gotta find money to buy the land and build!  :Biggrin:  
Just on eaves, in my council at least, eaves aren't taken into account when working out how close you can build, so eave or no eave you can build just as close which makes having no eaves absurd.   
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