Roofing in Thetford

Thetford grew fast under the London overspill scheme, which left it with a large stock of houses built to a similar pattern within a similar span of years. They are now all arriving at the same point at the same time, which is that the tiles are fine and the felt beneath them has gone.

In IP24 that means a lot of re-covers, and we can usually tell you what we will find before we open the roof up because we have done the neighbours.

A flint town and a new town side by side

Thetford signed up to the Town Development Act in 1957 to bring in people and industry from London. The first estates, Barnham Cross and Redcastle Furze, went up in the late 1950s, and Abbey Farm followed between 1967 and 1972. That is why so much of the town was roofed within a few years of itself, and why the same faults now turn up street after street.

The old centre is another thing altogether. It has been a conservation area since 1973, managed by Breckland Council, and the council's appraisal describes a town built mainly of local flint, knapped and coursed or laid as cobbles, with gault brick at the corners and round the openings. Some older walls are chalk on the inside with flint on the face. Red clay pantile is the most common roof covering in the centre, some of it black glazed, with slate and plain tile mostly on later or re-fronted buildings.

What goes wrong on an estate roof of that age

The pattern is predictable. The bitumen underfelt turns brittle and splits along the battens, and the first sign is often damp in the loft after driven rain rather than a drip through a ceiling. Ridge and verge tiles bedded in mortar work loose as the mortar breaks down. Original timber fascias have been painted over for years and are soft behind the paint. None of these is a crisis on its own. Found together on one roof, they usually point to a re-cover rather than another round of patching.

Pantile roofs in the old town fail differently. Pantiles need a steeper pitch than most modern concrete tiles, and a slope that has been patched with a mismatched tile, or bedded where it should sit dry, tends to leak at the laps. On listed flint buildings, or anywhere inside the conservation area, we check at survey whether the work needs consent before anything is ordered.

Where to go next in Thetford

For a roof that has had its day, our new roofs page covers re-covers and full replacements. For a single leak or storm damage, start with roof repairs. Loose ridge and verge tiles are covered under ridge, valley and gable repointing, and our article on whether to repair or replace a roof is a fair place to start if you are not sure which you need.