A roof in Selsey, Hayling Island or Bracklesham Bay lives a harder life than the same roof twenty miles inland. That is not marketing, it is just weather. Understanding why helps you spend maintenance money in the right places.
Salt gets into everything
Airborne salt is carried well inland on the wind. It settles on the roof and it accelerates corrosion on anything metal: nails, clips, screws, valley trays, and the fixings holding your ridge and verge in place. A nail that would last decades inland can fail much sooner within sight of the sea. When enough fixings go, tiles start to move even in moderate wind.
Wind driven rain finds every weak detail
Rain falling straight down is easy for a roof to deal with. Rain arriving sideways at forty miles an hour is not. It gets under lapped tiles, past tired flashing and into any joint that was detailed carelessly. This is why the abutments, the chimney flashing and the verge details matter more here than almost anywhere else.
Exposure means constant movement
Repeated wind loading works fixings loose over years. Ridge tiles on a mortar bed are particularly vulnerable, which is one reason dry ridge systems, mechanically fixed rather than bedded, have become the sensible specification on exposed properties.
Gutters fill faster near trees and open ground
Inland villages like Sidlesham and Aldingbourne have their own version of this: overhanging trees drop far more into gutters than an open seafront ever will, and blocked gutters cause damp just as reliably as a hole in the roof.
What this means in practice
Two things. First, specify for the exposure: proper fixings, dry ridge and verge systems where appropriate, and generous, well fixed flashing. Second, inspect more often than you would inland. An annual look over the roof and a gutter clear costs very little compared to repairing a damp wall.
We work right across this coastline, so we are used to specifying for it rather than treating an exposed Selsey bungalow like a sheltered inland semi.