Roofers in Chiddingfold

Chiddingfold's best-documented roof is not a house at all. The Crown Inn stands opposite the church, and the county history of 1911 records that it keeps a 14th-century king-post roof over what was originally its open hall, within massive timber framing. A king-post is a short vertical timber that rises from a cross-beam to the ridge, taking weight from the rafters and passing it down to the frame. That roof is not just old. It is a working structure, and it shows how buildings here were once put together: heavy frames first, with the covering hung from them afterwards. The inn's roof also reminds an owner of something simple. A building that has stood for six centuries has usually been repaired many times, and the repairs that lasted were the ones that respected the frame instead of fighting it. Today, a leak in a house of that kind deserves the same patience, a careful look at where the water enters and where it travels before it shows itself indoors.

1.1 Why the frame comes before the covering

On a timber-framed building, the roof covering is the visible layer and the frame is the thing that matters. A lifting tile or a tired ridge can be put right in a day, but a rafter foot that has rotted where a gutter overflowed is a different order of problem. Before any repair, we look from inside the loft as well as outside: for daylight at the laps, for stains on the timbers, for fresh sawdust that suggests beetle and for rafters that have dropped. When the evidence points to the frame, the first call is to a carpenter or a structural engineer, and you hear that before any quote is written.

1.2 Old farms and the clay under them

Lythe Hill Farm and Hallands are both named in the county history among the village's timber-framed buildings. Farms like these grew by additions, a wing here, a lean-to there, so their roofs often have awkward valleys, abutments and changes of pitch where one phase meets the next. Those junctions are where lead earns its place. A lead-lined valley (the gutter formed where two slopes run together) or a soaker (a small bent sheet of lead tucked under each course beside a wall) wears out sooner than the covering around it, and a patch of damp on an inside wall at a join in the building is often where that has happened. Our roof repairs service shows how we deal with the small failures before they turn into a big one.

Chiddingfold lies on deep Wealden Clay, about seven miles south of Godalming, and the 1911 county history describes the soil as very deep and tenacious in wet weather, the parish as well wooded and the village as home to tile and brick works. Glass was made here too. Around 1225 to 1230, Simon de Stokas granted land at Dyer's Cross to Laurence the Glassmaker. Those trades tell you what a roofer in Chiddingfold works with: clay under the foot, trees over the roof, and a long habit of local brick and tile. In 2007 Waverley merged the Chiddingfold and Northbridge areas into a single Chiddingfold Conservation Area, adopting its appraisal on 16 October that year.

3.1 Trees, leaves and moss over the roof

A well-wooded parish drops a lot of leaf, and leaf is the commonest cause of a blocked gutter or valley. A choked valley spills sideways and can soak the battens under it, and moss holds water against a tile and keeps it wet. We clear the channels, treat the moss by hand or with a careful wash that stops short of damaging the surface, and note any branches close enough to rub the roof. Our roof cleaning and moss removal service explains what each approach involves.

3.2 Soft ground, scaffolds and wet clay

Clay that turns tenacious in wet weather is awkward for a scaffold base and a heavy delivery. Scaffold feet are spread on boards and positioned with care, and a lorry that cannot get onto a soft verge is better planned for than rescued. Where scaffolding will stand on or over the road or pavement, the scaffolders must hold a highways licence before they start, so we ask early about the start date and plan the job around the notice period. Check that any quote you are given says whether the scaffold and VAT are included.

3.3 What the conservation area asks of a roof

Re-covering in a similar material is the ordinary case, and ordinary cases rarely call for planning permission. Changes to the look are different, and in a conservation area the planning team at Waverley Borough Council is the place to ask, particularly if you are thinking of a roof window. Our conservation roof windows guide explains the points to raise. The merger of 2007 matters mainly for one reason: Chiddingfold and Northbridge are now judged as one place, so an address near the old boundary should be checked against the single map and appraisal Waverley holds, not against what a neighbour remembers.

Deep clay holds water, and a soakaway or drain that is slow to clear can leave the ground by a downpipe wet for days. If rainwater from the roof backs up at ground level, the staining on a wall can be mistaken for a roof defect. We trace the downpipe to its outlet before concluding anything about the roof above it.