Roofing Specialists
in London

Huge swathes of London were built between 1850 and 1910 with natural slate on lightweight timber and iron nails. Those nails corrode — nail sickness — and slates begin slipping in ones and twos long before the roof looks bad from the street.

The classic London answer is another slate hooked in with a tingle. That buys a season. Once several slates per year are moving, the roof is telling you the fixings have gone and a renewal or a full strip-and-relay is the honest recommendation.

Terraced London roofs drain into hidden parapet and valley gutters that sit between properties. When lead in those gutters splits, or a poorly executed mastic repair fails, water runs straight into the structure — often appearing in a bedroom two metres from the real fault.

These details need hand-dressed and welded lead sized to the run, with proper laps and expansion allowance. Mastic and flashing tape on a London parapet is a temporary measure, and we are frequently the firm removing someone else's version of it.

Almost every London back-addition, side return and dormer has a flat roof on it. Many were laid in pour-and-roll felt decades ago, and the deck beneath has quietly absorbed water since.

We survey the deck rather than just the covering. Where the boards are sound, a three-layer felt, EPDM, single ply or GRP system will give you a properly guaranteed roof — 15 years from us plus the manufacturer's own cover.

London's urban heat island puts roofs through sharper thermal cycling than the surrounding counties, which works joints and old felt harder. At the same time, shaded north-facing slopes and tree-lined streets grow heavy moss.

Moss is not cosmetic. It dams valleys, holds moisture against tiles and freezes in winter, lifting edges. We remove it by hand and treat with biocide rather than pressure washing, which strips granules and drives water under the laps.

London's conversion boom left thousands of mansards, dormers and rooflights installed at wildly varying standards. Cheeks that were never properly flashed, upstands that are too shallow and rooflight kerbs bedded on sealant all leak eventually.

When we survey a converted London loft we look at the junctions first, because that is where the water gets in — not through the middle of a covering.

Spray foam insulation was sold heavily across London lofts. Lenders and surveyors now routinely refuse to work with it because it hides the timber and traps moisture against the deck.

We strip it out completely and reinstate the roof so it can be inspected again. No certificate exists for the removal itself, but every removal we have carried out has passed building control and surveyor scrutiny.