Home / Areas / North and east London
Roofing in north and east London
The terraces of Islington, Hackney, Walthamstow, Tottenham and Leyton share a roof type that behaves in a way almost nothing built since does, and most of the work here follows from it.
Butterfly roofs and parapet gutters
A great many of these houses have a butterfly, or M-shaped, roof: two slopes falling inward to a central valley behind a front parapet. It is the single most consistent source of serious leaks in these postcodes, because the whole roof drains through one gutter and one outlet, and if that outlet blocks the water has nowhere to go but inside.
The other consequence is that you cannot see the failure from the street. A parapet gutter can be standing full of water for months before anything appears on a ceiling, and by then the timber ends bearing on the party wall are usually wet too.
Relining a parapet gutter properly, with the right upstands and a working outlet, is a different job to patching a hole in it. On these roofs we look at the whole run and the outlet before quoting anything.
Slate, and nail fatigue
Most original coverings here are Welsh slate, which outlives its fixings comfortably. When slates start slipping in different places each winter, the slate is usually fine and the nails have rusted through. That is the point where patching stops making sense and a strip and re-cover, reusing sound slate where it is worth it, becomes the better spend.
Conservation areas across these boroughs will often have a view about the covering on a front slope, so we check before quoting a substitute.
Party walls and access
Mid-terrace work means scaffolding decisions early: no rear access, shared party walls, and often a pavement licence on the front. It affects the price and the programme more than the roof work itself does, which is why we want the postcode and the house type at the enquiry rather than on the day.
Where a valley or a parapet is shared with the neighbour, the sensible repair is frequently a conversation with them first, and we will say so rather than doing half of a shared detail.
Flat roofs on rear extensions
Almost every house here has a flat roof over a back addition or an outrigger, often laid in felt decades ago with a fall that has flattened as the timber has aged. These are the second most common job in these streets, and the fix is usually about correcting the fall rather than choosing a fashionable covering.
Where we work in north and east London
Our own team covers every borough. These are the streets this page is about, and a postcode anywhere in London is worth sending.
- Islington, Highbury and Holloway
- Hackney, Stoke Newington and Dalston
- Walthamstow, Leyton and Leytonstone
- Tottenham, Wood Green and Hornsey
- Camden, Kentish Town and Tufnell Park
- Stratford, Forest Gate and East Ham
- Bow, Mile End and Bethnal Green
Recent jobs in North and east London
Questions
Do you work in conservation areas?
Yes. Where the covering on a visible slope is controlled, we match it and tell you what that means for the price before you commit.
Can you quote from photographs?
Often, on a repair. On a butterfly roof we would rather look, because the thing that matters is usually the gutter you cannot photograph from the ground.
Who arranges the scaffold and any pavement licence?
We do. Access is priced into the quote, so the figure you agree is the figure for the whole job.