Roofers in Alveston

The Ship Inn dates back to 1589 as a coaching house, and the older houses near the old Green belong to the same long period of piecemeal building. Roofs of this kind have usually been altered many times. A dormer added here, a chimney lowered there, a section re-covered after a fire or a storm. When we survey one, we read the roof like a record of what has happened to it.

The timbers come first. A pitched roof is a framework of rafters, supported by purlins (horizontal beams across the slope) and resting on a wall plate along the top of the wall. Water that gets past the covering finds the joints of this framework first, and the ends of the rafters near the gutter are the most likely to rot. From inside the loft we probe suspect timbers, and from outside we check the line of the ridge for sagging, which signals a problem with the structure beneath.

The covering comes second. We establish whether the roof is clay tile, slate, stone or something newer, and whether it is original. A roof that has been patched in several materials can be tidied by re-laying the whole slope in a single matching material, reusing the good old pieces and bringing in new or salvaged matches for the rest.

Chimneys are the third area. A stack on an old house takes weather from every side, and the flashing round it, usually lead, wears out sooner than the brickwork. We repoint with a mortar that suits the masonry, which on an old building means lime rather than hard cement. Our chimney repairs page shows the range of work from patching to rebuilding.

For a listed house, consent is a question for South Gloucestershire Council before work that goes beyond a like-for-like repair. We cannot give a legal opinion, but we can set the intended work out in terms the council can respond to.

At Rudgeway, only the tower and south aisle wall of the Old Church of St Helen remain standing. Rolls-Royce plc restored the structure. It is a useful illustration, because a building without a roof is a building without its main defence, and the effect on masonry is easy to see.

Water is a leading cause of decay in stone and brick. It gets into joints, freezes, expands and breaks the surface. It carries salts that crystallise and flake the face. It feeds moss and plants that root in the mortar. A roof, with its gutters and downpipes, keeps that water away from the wall faces and takes it to the ground away from the foundations.

The same principle applies to a house. When a gutter blocks or a joint opens, water spills over the edge and runs down the wall, and an old wall left damp over many winters loses its pointing, then its stone or brick. The soaking spreads inside as damp patches and flaking plaster. Some damp blamed on the ground is in fact roof water that has not been led away.

So the rainwater system is part of the roof, and we treat it that way. We check that gutters are fixed to a fall, that the joints are sealed, that downpipes discharge into a drain or a gully clear of the wall, and that the fascia behind is sound. The materials, from plastic to cast iron and aluminium, are compared on our gutters, soffits and fascias service page, along with what each suits.

Where the top of a wall is exposed, such as a gable end or a chimney, coping and pointing protect it. A cracked coping or an open joint at the top of a wall lets water in at the point where it can do the most harm.