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Roofing in Hertfordshire and the north west suburbs
Watford, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Borehamwood, Hatfield and Enfield are largely interwar suburbia with a lot of mature planting, and both of those facts show up on the roofs.
Nineteen-thirties semis
Steep front gables, clay or concrete tile, generous overhangs and a lot of detail: hips, valleys, bay roofs and a stack or two. The complexity is the point. There is far more junction per square metre on one of these roofs than on a plain rectangle, and junctions are where roofs leak.
Hip and bonnet tiles bedded in mortar are a recurring job here, as are the small lead-lined valleys between the main roof and a projecting gable. Both are repairable long before the covering needs anything.
Bay roofs, which everybody forgets
The little flat or shallow-pitched roof over a bay window is the most neglected surface on these houses. It is small, invisible from the ground, often original, and directly above a living room ceiling. A large share of the leaks in these streets are bay roofs and the flashing where they meet the wall.
Trees, gutters and valleys
These are leafy suburbs, and that is not a compliment where roofs are concerned. Valleys and gutters fill every autumn, water backs up under the covering at the valley lap, and the damage shows up inside as a stain that appears only in heavy rain.
Where there are trees, six-monthly clearing is genuinely cheaper than the repair it prevents, and it is the one piece of maintenance we push hardest in this area.
Loft conversions and dormers
A great many of these houses have gained a dormer. Dormer cheeks and their flat roofs move more than the main roof does, which makes covering choice and upstand detail matter: a rigid covering on a moving dormer cracks at the junction, usually within a few years.
Where a conversion was done years ago and the dormer now leaks, we look at the detailing before recommending a new covering, because the covering is often not the thing that failed.
Where we work in Hertfordshire and north west London
Our own team covers the whole county and the north west boroughs. If your town is not listed, send your postcode anyway.
- Watford, Bushey and Rickmansworth
- St Albans and Harpenden
- Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted
- Borehamwood, Radlett and Potters Bar
- Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City
- Enfield, Barnet and Southgate
- Harrow, Edgware and Stanmore
Recent jobs in Hertfordshire and north west London
Questions
Can you match a 1930s clay tile?
Usually, including reclaimed tile where the slope is visible. We will tell you before the work what the match will be.
Do you do the flat roof on a dormer?
Yes, and we will say which covering suits a surface that moves rather than fitting the same thing to everything.
Is gutter clearing worth paying for?
Under trees, yes. A blocked valley or gutter is the cheapest leak to prevent and one of the most annoying to trace once it is inside.