Roofers in Eastergate

Arun District Council's character appraisal for Church Lane records that the conservation area was designated in June 1992. It names clay tile as the predominant roofing material, with slate and thatch on a limited number of buildings. At the heart of the area stands St George's, a Grade I church that is Norman in its fabric though much restored, and the chancel contains Roman brick that hints at a high-status building nearby, possibly a villa. A roofer who works on this lane is working in a place where history sits in the walls, and the roofs ought to look as if they belong.

1.1 Matching clay tile to its neighbours

Clay tile weathers unevenly. Moss, lichen, sun and years of rain give each roof its own blend of oranges and browns, and a new tile laid on a street like this looks flat and bright for years. Mixing salvaged tiles with new ones, laid in a scattered pattern, blends a repair in. Seen from the lane, the rhythm of the courses and the colour of the clay carry as much of the street as the walls do. The covering has a long working life: Marley quotes 60 years as a minimum for clay, which is a planning figure and not a promise. Our pitched roofing page covers how a slope is stripped, repaired and relaid.

1.2 Hips and ridges: bedded or dry-fixed

The hip is the angled external corner at the meeting of two roof planes, with the ridge along the very top. Both are capped with special tiles, traditionally bedded in mortar. Since the 2014 revision of BS 5534, bedded tiles also get mechanical fixings, and BS 8612:2018 sets out the tests for dry-fixed systems that hold ridge, hip and verge tiles without mortar. Dry-fix is not obligatory on a traditional roof, and the choice depends on how the roof looks from the lane. We say which suits your house and why, with photographs of the existing ridge and hips so you can see the condition for yourself. Where bedded ridge tiles have worked loose, the fix is to lift them, rebed them on fresh mortar and add the fixings, not to smear over the old joint.

1.3 Churches, houses and who consents

Works to a listed house need listed building consent when they would affect its character. A church in Church of England use follows the faculty system instead, and a scheduled monument in a churchyard needs scheduled monument consent. For your own roof in the conservation area, put the question to Arun's conservation officer before changing the covering.

Eastergate lies on the coastal plain, and its parish includes Barnham railway station. The Victoria County History records that severe flooding was experienced in the later 20th century in the area east and north-east of the station. A roof does not cause a flood, but it sheds a lot of water in a downpour, and where the ground is already wet a blocked gutter or downpipe makes things worse. Rainwater goods are the first thing we look at on a low-lying property, and the answer to a flooding worry is usually a clear and well-fitted gutter, not a new roof. If a downpipe discharges against a wall instead of into a drain, that is worth fixing at the same visit.

3.1 Gutters that carry the load

Brett Martin's installation guidance gives a gutter a fall of 1 mm for every 600 mm, with supports no more than 900 mm apart. Sagging brackets, dips and joints that have lost their seal are the faults we look for when a gutter overflows down the wall. Fascias, the boards that carry the gutter, rot from the back where the water sits, so a gutter that has dripped for years can hide soft timber behind it. Soffits (the boards under the eaves) are worth a careful look too. The HSE lists external soffits among the places where asbestos insulating board has been used, and notes that the board looks much like its non-asbestos equivalents, so an old soffit is checked before it is cut or removed. Our guttering, soffits and fascias page covers replacement.

3.2 Flat roofs on garages and extensions

A flat roof must fall towards its outlet, or water lies and finds a way through. BS 6229:2025 keeps a minimum finished fall of 1:80, and designers aim steeper, around 1:40, so the finished surface still drains. GreenSpec gives EPDM, a rubber membrane, an expected service life of 20 to 30 years, and Less gives GRP, a glass-fibre coating, 25 to 40 years. Figures like these shape the repair-or-replace verdict, together with what the photographs show. A garage roof patched again and again, with water lying near the outlet, is more likely to want a new covering than one more patch, and you hear that from us before you spend money on the wrong job.