New roofs in Dereham

Dereham has a compact older core in brick and pantile and a great deal of housing built around it from the 1960s onwards in concrete interlocking tile. Those estate roofs were all built within a fairly short span of years to a fairly similar specification, which means they are now arriving at the same point at the same time, and the point they are arriving at is not the one most people expect.

Your tiles are probably fine

On a house of that generation the concrete tiles are usually still doing their job. What has failed is the bitumen felt underneath them, which has gone brittle, torn between the rafters and stopped being a second line of defence at all. You can see it from inside the loft: daylight through the tears, debris dropping into the insulation and a draught that was not there ten winters ago.

That is a re-cover rather than a new covering. We strip carefully, stack and sort the tiles, renew the membrane and the battens underneath, and relay what came off with new tiles making up the shortfall for breakages. You are not paying for a covering you did not need, and the roof does not suddenly look brand new next to the rest of the street.

When it does need new tiles

Sometimes the tiles genuinely are spent. Concrete goes porous with age, the surface weathers off and they start absorbing water and growing moss faster than they shed it. On a roof like that a re-cover just puts old problems back on new timber. We will tell you which of the two you have at survey, and where it is a genuine choice we price both rather than steering you at the bigger job.

The older centre

In the middle of the town the coverings are pantile and slate on steeper, older roofs, and the questions are the traditional ones: matching a pantile so a repair is not visible from the street for the next fifty years, and whether the existing slate is worth salvaging. Both are answerable at survey rather than after the scaffold is up. On an older roof the head lap is worth getting right as well, because on a shallower pitch the lap matters more than the covering does, and it is the detail most often skipped.

Open country

Dereham is not the coast, but the land around it is flat and open and a gable end facing the wrong way takes real wind. We fix and clip for the exposure the property actually has rather than applying one standard detail to every roof in mid Norfolk. It is also why we would put a dry verge on rather than bedding one in mortar, because a mortar verge on an exposed gable is the first thing to crack and the first thing to let the wind under the tiles.

What is included

• A fixed written quote with the specification set out
• The salvage rate on your existing tiles, stated before you commit
• Timbers exposed, inspected and repaired before recovering
• Breathable membrane and treated battens throughout
• Dry ridge and dry verge in place of mortar
• Scaffold, skip, disposal and clear up in the price