Roofing in Hangersley

Valleys, first. The commonest fault here and the one people misread. Many of the detached houses have cross gables, so there is a valley on the roof, and a valley on a wooded plot fills with leaf litter until water backs up sideways under the tiles. It shows as a stain in the middle of a ceiling, nowhere near the valley. We clear it, check whether the lead or tile valley beneath has split, and renew the section that has gone. Then the ordinary work: slipped, cracked and missing tiles, storm damage and leaks traced back to the point of entry rather than patched at the stain. Better than half the dwellings went up between 1945 and 1982, peaking in the late sixties and early seventies, so concrete interlocking tile is the usual covering, with plain tile and natural slate on the older cottages and the odd clay tile roof that has been there a great deal longer than either.

Flashings, soakers and the abutments where a roof runs into a wall go in code rated lead. Where a stack has been patched with mortar fillets or mastic, that comes out and proper lead goes in, because a fillet cracks the first winter it sees. The plots along the top of the escarpment take the wind that the sheltered ones do not, and wind works at the edges of a roof: mortar bedding cracks, a hip tile creeps, a verge sheds. We convert to a dry fix system, ridge and hip screwed over a ventilated roll and a dry verge clipped at the gable, which is the mechanical fixing BS 5534 calls for. There is no sarking board under most of these roofs, so the felt underlay is the second line of defence and it perishes first at the eaves where it laps into the gutter. Batten ends, rafter feet and corroded nails get checked from inside before we price anything, and when all three have gone the covering comes off and goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile.

Gutters, more than anywhere else we work. Oak leaf and holly do not wash through, they mat, and the mat ends up in the downpipe and the gully below where you cannot see it. Clearing means emptying the run and then flushing the downpipes through, and moss and algae on the shaded slopes come off at the same time. Garages, rear extensions, porches and dormer tops are felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, deck first, then the falls, the upstands and the outlet, and on a plot with trees over it the outlet is the part that decides how long it lasts. With the covering off, insulation, eaves ventilation and condensation are far cheaper to put right, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof should reach.

The ground decides it here. Plots run up and down a slope, and a scaffold on falling ground needs levelling and more of it than the same job on the flat, so we settle where it stands before pricing. How long it stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why the platform is a line of its own rather than an optional extra. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are counted one at a time, because that is where the leadwork hours go. Ask whether the scaffold is in the quote, and whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over.