Roofers in Crawley

Crawley stands in the Weald where the Brighton to London road crosses the Horsham to East Grinstead road, and its old centre is the High Street. A licence to hold a Friday market was granted to Michael de Poynings in 1202-3, so the street has a long history as a trading place. Crawley Borough Council first designated the High Street Conservation Area in November 1986, and it is one of 13 conservation areas in the borough. Others include Ifield Village, Worth and St Peters. The parish church is St John the Baptist. Where the old centre survives, its roofs are the oldest in the town, and the buildings under them are the ones to treat with the most care.

1.1 Horsham slabs on a 15th-century frame

The Priors' House, on the east side of the High Street, is a timber-framed building of about 1450, and the county history describes its roof as covered with Horsham slabs. That description dates from 1940, so check what the roof carries today. Horsham slabs are stone roofing slabs, laid in courses that get smaller toward the ridge, and they are not the same as tile or slate. A roof like that needs someone who knows how it is put together. Our Horsham Stone roofing page explains how stone roofs are repaired and relaid.

1.2 Listed and conservation area work

Alterations that change a listed building's special character need listed building consent, and in a conservation area it is worth asking Crawley Borough Council's planning team before anything changes how the roof looks. Crawley's Article 4 directions deal with changes of use in named closes and business areas and with a few individual sites, and none of them takes away roof rights on the High Street. Relaying with the same covering is rarely a planning matter, unless a listing or an Article 4 direction applies. Before we price an old roof we read its list entry if it has one and photograph the structure, so the written quote reflects what is there.

The High Street holds shops and houses of several centuries side by side, so roofs meet at party walls, parapets and shared gutters. Where an old stone-slab roof meets a later tiled one, the flashing between them has to cope with two materials that move differently, and it is often the first thing to give. We trace leaks there with extra care, because the water seldom enters where it shows.

Langley Green was complete by 1956, and Bewbush was begun in 1974-5. An original roof on a Bewbush house is therefore more than fifty years old, and the oldest Langley Green roofs are older still. Between them lie two decades in which the new town changed the way it built roofs, and the county history notes that later decades brought lower-pitched roofs. For a homeowner, the lower pitch matters in a simple way. Rain has less slope to run down, so the tile laps, the underlay beneath them and the flashings at walls and chimneys all work harder. The manufacturer's data sheet for any tile gives the lowest slope it is rated for, and a roof laid close to that limit has less margin when the weather turns.

3.1 Lower pitches, laps and underlay

The underlay is the sheet laid under the tiles as a second line of defence, and on a low-pitched roof it does more of the work. If it has perished, rain that gets past the tiles goes straight into the loft. A few tiles come up near the eaves so the underlay can be photographed and judged on the spot. That one look often decides between a repair and a re-roof, and it keeps the quote to what the roof needs.

Air matters as well as water. With a high-resistance underlay, Marley's guidance asks for 25 mm of ventilation along the eaves on pitches of 15 degrees or less, and 10 mm above that. A low roof therefore needs more air movement at the eaves, which is worth checking whenever the underlay is renewed, since a roof that cannot breathe can suffer condensation in the loft even when the covering is sound.

3.2 Flat roofs, falls and the 1:80 minimum

Wherever a flat-roofed garage or extension has been added, it needs to drain. BS 6229:2025 sets a minimum finished fall of 1:80, and roofers design steeper so the finished surface still sheds water. Ponding is the first sign that a flat roof has no fall left. Approved Document L treats re-covering a flat roof as renovation: once more than 50 per cent of that element is renovated, the insulation may need to meet the upgrade figures. Keep that in mind when you compare quotes. Our flat roofing page describes the coverings on offer, and our roof repairs page covers the smaller jobs on these estates.