The Historic St Francis de Sales Church in Devonport.
The red-brick Gothic-revival style church occupies a prominent position in Devonport village. Although built of sturdy materials in 1918, the somewhat hostile marine environment had taken a toll on the brickwork and corrugated iron roof. Phillip Hartley, Building Conservation Surveyor from Salmond Reed Architects Ltd, Devonport, was contracted to design and project manage the repairs and maintenance.
Retaining or utilising original materials where possible would ensure that new materials would easily blend with the old, but the task was made a little more difficult because of compatibility issues between some of the old and new products.
The problem of sourcing a suitable roofing product that would not react adversely with the lead was solved by a bespoke ColorCote® 8000+ series paint system applied to both sides of a galvanised steel substrate to provide even greater protection against salt-laden air. The colour selected, Pioneer Red, also matched the previous roof, as well as blending with the older buildings in the Devonport conservation area.
| Profile | Corrugate |
| Installer | Metro Roofing, Auckland |
| Reformer | Roofing Industries, Auckland & Palmerston North |
Getting the 10.5 metre-long roofing panels into placeand onto a very steep 55-degree pitch, more thansix metres above the ground, also proved to be achallenge. Metro Roofing removed the old iron anderected the new roof in stages, so as not to exposethe building too much to the weather. They couldonly erect scaffolding as far as the guttering, andthen the three-man roofing team had to man-handlethe new panels up the steep slope. As they went, theMetro team also installed insulation and applied borertreatment to any affected timber rafters and purlins.“The final result looks great and should last for manyyears to come,” added Rob Anderson.
