Roof repairs in Dereham

A good share of what gets called a roof leak in Dereham is not a roof leak. It is a gutter that has been full of moss and leaf litter for several autumns, overflowing every time it rains hard, running down the wall and soaking the fascia behind it. By the time anyone rings us the board is soft, the gutter is sagging because the board can no longer hold the brackets, and there is green staining down the brick where the water has been going.

Start at the edge of the roof

It is the cheapest thing to check and it is the thing left longest. We clear, refix and reset the fall on the gutter so it drains to the outlet rather than sitting in the middle, and where the fascia behind it has gone we take the timber off rather than capping over it. With the board off we can see the rafter feet, which is where a long running overflow does its real damage, and those get repaired before anything new goes on.

The estate roofs

Verges that have cracked

Mortar is rigid and a roof is not, so a bedded verge cracks, lets wind under the edge tile and then takes the row. Re-bedding buys a few years. A mechanically fixed dry verge does not have the same failure mode.

Loose ridge tiles

Same cause, and a safety problem as well as a leak. Worth converting to a dry ridge when they are dealt with rather than bedding them back to come loose again.

Felt torn under sound tiles

Where the bitumen felt has split in one area under a covering that is otherwise fine, we strip back that section and tie new breathable membrane into the existing roof so the repair sheds water into the felt below it rather than behind it. Whether that will work depends on how brittle the old felt has gone. If it crumbles the moment it is disturbed, a patch will not hold and we will tell you rather than take the money for one.

The older property

Pantile and slate in the middle of the town bring the traditional faults. Slipped pantiles where the nib has broken, failed lead at chimneys and abutments, and valleys that have filled and backed water up under the covering. On a pantile repair the match matters, because a patch in the wrong tile is visible from the road for the rest of the roof's life. We source new or reclaimed to suit.

How we work

Water tracks along a rafter before it drops, so we work back from the stain to the source instead of sealing whatever looks worst. You get photographs before and after, and a straight answer about whether a repair will hold. If the covering is finished, we will tell you that rather than sell you a patch we do not believe in.