Roofers in Goring-by-Sea

The Worthing council appraisal of Goring records that the detached houses lining Sea Lane are chiefly of the 1930s, with those on the west side built by Hesketh Estates in the moderne style: white-painted render, pitched roofs, and in some cases pantiles. Between the 1930s and now is the best part of a century, and a roof that nobody has ever stripped has been up there for most of it. That alone does not mean it needs replacing. It does follow that the battens (the timber strips the tiles hook onto), the underlay beneath them and the fixings holding each tile have all had a long time to tire, and that is what a survey looks at, not the surface alone.

1.1 Pantile roofs and what goes wrong

A pantile is a clay tile with an S-shaped curve, laid in a single layer with the curves interlocking. That keeps the roof simple, but the single layer leans on the fixings and the laps. Marley lists its clay pantile with a minimum pitch of 15 degrees, so a shallow pantiled roof has less margin than a steep plain-tile one. We look for tiles that have slipped on their battens, cracked pantiles at the valley, and the mortar around the ridge and hip. Pantiles can usually be taken off, graded and put back over fresh battens and underlay if most are sound, and replacements are matched for colour and profile. See our ridge tile repairs page for the details of ridges.

1.2 Render, verges and the white wall line

Rendered walls and a pitched roof meet at the verge (the trimmed edge along a gable end) and at the eaves, and those lines are where a moderne house shows its age. A cracked verge mortar lets water behind the render, and a stain appears on a wall that looks as if the wall is at fault. We trace it back to the roof edge. The fix is a verge fixed mechanically, not on mortar alone, and the render touched up by whoever knows the finish. A roof contractor who repairs the verge and walks away from a hairline crack in the render has only done half of it, so we say what else the survey shows, even where it is not our trade. Where the render needs a plasterer, we tell you that plainly and hold the roof repair until the wall can be put right too, so the same water does not simply find another way in.

The southern part of Goring was built up rapidly and on a large scale. By 1938 most of the land south of the railway had been laid out with roads, according to the Victoria County History, and the appraisal says the area had been a sparsely populated rural backwater before that. The practical point for us is simple. Streets built in a few years have roofs of the same age, laid with the same fixings, and the problems tend to arrive together along a road, not house by house. Ridge mortar cracks, verge tiles loosen and the old underlay goes brittle at about the same time, because the original materials were the same and the weather has treated them alike. If your neighbour has just had slipped tiles seen to, it is worth having yours looked at before the next gale.

3.1 Garages and flat-roofed extensions

Houses of this age gather add-ons: garages, porches, a flat-roofed kitchen at the back. BS 6229:2025 sets a minimum finished fall of 1:80 for a flat roof, and roofers usually design steeper, around 1:40, so the finished roof still drains. A flat roof that ponds water after rain has usually lost its fall, and a patch will not cure that. Standing water finds the smallest weakness in a covering, so when the deck is sound we relay the covering with a better fall worked in, and when the deck is soft we renew it first. The HSE advises treating a garage that predates the year 2000, or was refurbished before it, as containing asbestos until a check says otherwise. Moving asbestos cement sheets carefully, with no breakage, counts as non-licensed work; once it is substantially broken, the job becomes notifiable. Waste from it needs a consignment note. Our garage roof replacement page covers what is involved.

3.2 What the national figures say

Typical UK repair costs vary with the covering, and the figures in the panel are national ones, not our prices. Scaffold, if the job needs it, is a separate matter: a scaffold that stands on or reaches over the road needs a highway licence, which West Sussex County Council issues, with at least 10 working days' notice and a published fee of £266 for one month. Ask every firm whether VAT and scaffolding sit inside its price, and ask for the verdict on the roof in writing before you decide.