Roofers in Elmer

High Kettle, named in the Victoria County History, is a cottage in Elmer Road that began in the late 17th or early 18th century and is built of flint with brick dressings and thatch. Brick dressings are the brickwork around corners, windows and doors, where flint alone would be hard to shape. The same history says coastguard cottages were newly built at Elmer by 1841. Between them, those two entries cover the village's early roofs: one cottage under thatch, and a row built for a government service on the shore. A roof of that age is read as it stands today, not from the history.

1.1 Brick, flint and the roof that meets them

Where a tiled roof meets flint and brick, the junction is the weak point. Flint is uneven and brick is not, so a flashing that suits one may sit badly against the other. A good lead flashing is cut to follow the wall, tucked into a raked-out joint and sealed, and it is wedged along its upper edge. Brick can be pointed tighter than the flint beside it, so a crack near the roofline is worth noting before the lead goes on. Our lead roofing and leadwork page shows the types of flashing and where lead gets used.

1.2 A row of 1841 coastguard cottages

Any terrace raises the same questions that row would. A terrace shares its roof line, and often a party wall and a chimney stack, so water getting in at one house can show up in the next. A repair on a row calls for a word with the neighbours, a shared plan for scaffold and a check on whose gutter is whose. Slipped slates or tiles at the ridge are usually the first sign, and a roof inspection finds the cause. If the row was re-roofed in stages, the slopes may be different ages, and the joins between them deserve the most attention.

1.3 A dry roof beside a living fire

Thatch changes the rules for everyone nearby. Before a flame or a hot tool comes out, we look at the flue, the stack and the gap between the thatch and the work. A torch-on felt joint or a soldered flashing needs a fire plan beside straw, or a cold-applied alternative. If a chimney has not been swept or lined recently, that comes first. The stack work itself comes after that check.

At Elmer a sea bank put up before 1931 was destroyed in that year, flooding much of the Elmer Sands estate, and the Victoria County History says spring tides with south-westerly gales still caused occasional flooding in the 1970s and later. That is history, not a current hazard rating, and we do not give any road a flood score. It does explain why a low seafront estate takes its weather seriously, and why the drainage on its roofs matters as much as the covering. With so little standing between a low roof and the weather, trouble tends to appear along the edges first.

3.1 Gutters and downpipes in heavy rain

Gutter makers give falls from roughly 1:600 to 1:350 depending on the system, and Brett Martin says brackets should be no more than 900 mm apart. A sagging run holds water, spills over the fascia and soaks the wall. Leaves and moss in the outlets do the same job in a few weeks. A full gutter in a downpour is often mistaken for a leaking roof. Brackets also need sound fascia boards behind them, so renewing a gutter alone can fail within a season if the rafter ends are rotten.

3.2 Low pitches and wind suction

Marley's wind guidance says the windward slope of a roof pitched below 30 degrees may face severe negative pressure. Chalets and bungalows with shallow slopes therefore need every tile or slate fixed to the manufacturer's data sheet, and each product has its own minimum pitch, which is on its data sheet, such as 35 degrees for Marley concrete plain tiles and 20 degrees for natural slate under BS 5534. The first job is to measure the pitch, because the answer decides which coverings are allowed at all, and an old chalet roof that was fitted with the wrong product is a common reason for a repair that keeps failing. If the pitch is too shallow for the covering you want, a flat-roof system is often the better answer than forcing a tile onto it.