Wind and Rain - Wet or Dry?

I wrote recently about how this house is now warm and dry (see this post), and the recent weather has reinforced that view.  The wind and rain have been causing issues both to the Grade I listed church opposite, and to the 12 year old house of a friend who had water ingress affecting her electrics and security alarm. In both cases I went to investigate and the cause was the same - the driving wind from the south-west forcing water into cracks in the wall and gaps along flashing.

On the church there were small leaks at various places along the south arches where the nave meets the south aisle. As a result I had to go on the south aisle roof (on Christmas Eve!) to investigate and found that the flashing was pointed with cement which had come away from the limestone above, leaving a 2-3mm gap.  Since it was cement already I overcame my inbuilt resistance and used some fairly wet cement mortar to fill in this gap; however, it is a good illustration of why you shouldn't use cement on a limestone building - the cement is rigid and so will crack when the lead expands in the heat, whereas lime mortar is much more tolerant. At some time we will get all this cement out and have the job done properly with lime, but of course I couldn't do such a repair in this cold and wet weather.

The friend's house was perhaps more surprising: the water ingress was where the low front porch joined the front wall of the 2-storey house and at a quick glance from the ground it all looked OK. However, closer investigation using a ladder revealed cracks in the pointing of the front wall of the house, and some very poor pointing using mastic on the lead flashing at the join. In fact, there was what looked like the proper exterior mastic but also some clear mastic which really looked like internal stuff which someone had applied when a similar event had occurred before our friend bought it; of course, the newer stuff was no longer stuck to the older stuff so my recommendation was to get someone to sort the mastic properly and, perhaps, fill the pointing cracks at the same time. Of course, I am still officially convalescing so I didn't want to volunteer myself, even though I do have the necessary tools.

On the plus side, our own house has stoutly resisted the weather and has only ever had water ingress at one point - a southerly wind can force rain onto and under the front door despite a decent weatherboard and some cunning work by me on the doorstep. We use a bit of newspaper to mop it up and otherwise ignore it! As I look out now on New Year's Eve and see the rain still falling, at least I can feel content with this house being warm and dry - now I must go and check the church...