Roofers in Patchway

The 1930s houses of Patchway Estate and the mid-1960s overspill behind it belong to different building cultures. The earlier houses tend to have more traditional roof carpentry and a chimney stack at each gable. The later ones were built faster and lighter, with lower pitches, shallower eaves and a fascia board running unbroken round the house. Both are now old, and each has its own list of likely failures.

In the older houses, the stack is the first thing to look at. Bricks weather, the mortar between them loses its face, and the flashing round the base can lift. Rain then runs into the wall and the chimney breast, and shows up as a stain on the bedroom ceiling. Repointing and renewing the lead round the base can be done without rebuilding the whole stack, and our flat roofing work often goes alongside, when a rear extension has a flat roof meeting the same wall.

In the 1960s houses, the main weakness is the edge. Timber fascias and soffits, the boards that close the roof overhang, rot slowly from the gutter line. A board that has gone soft cannot hold the gutter or the first row of tiles properly, and the damp can climb into the rafter ends behind it. When we find that, we say how far the rot extends before we advise.

The coverings also differ. A 1930s roof may carry clay tiles, and a 1960s one usually has a machine-made tile of some kind, but we confirm by looking, not by guessing from the date. What matters is that the replacement tile sits properly beside the old one in profile and colour when only part of the roof is being repaired.

Underlay is worth checking on both. The older houses may have none, and the later ones a thin felt that has dried out. We ease up a handful of tiles along the eaves, then report what lies beneath.

Repair and replacement sit on opposite sides of a regulatory line. A repair, or a re-cover that affects only a limited part of the building and less than half of the roof, is not normally something that needs Building Regulations approval. A larger re-roof does, and the roof may then need upgrading for thermal performance under Part L. Approval is also needed if the roof covering you choose adds 15% or more to the weight, with a structural check under Approved Document A. These are the Planning Portal's thresholds, and we show where your own roof falls against them before any price is set.

This matters in Patchway because the roofs of the bungalows and the 1960s houses were built to older standards. Replacing a whole roof is often the moment to improve loft insulation and ventilation, and it is easier to do it while the covering is off. If the work is notifiable, the application goes to your building control body, whether that is the council's own team or a registered private approver.

The sequence of a full re-roof is steady and predictable. Scaffold is erected, the old covering is stripped in sections, the timbers are checked and any rotten rafters or battens are renewed, the underlay goes on, and the new covering is fixed. At the verges, ridge and hips the fixings are mechanical. Last of all, the site is swept clear.

Charlton Hayes stands apart from all this. Construction began in late 2009 on land north of the old airfield, under a permission for 2,200 homes, so its roofs are new and are covered by the rules of their own time. If you live there, you are unlikely to need a re-roof, but you may need small repairs, and the same survey applies.

Patchway Common, the old green, is where the village stood at the start of the 20th century, and for any older house there, the approach is to identify the covering first, then match it.