Roofers in Haslemere

Haslemere is a market town on the Lower Greensand in the south-west corner of Surrey, and the Victoria County History's 1911 description still reads like a roofing checklist. Tile-hanging, it says, is the characteristic feature of the houses, which are mostly gabled and of brick or timber and plaster construction, with fine brick chimney stacks and tiled roofs. The word "mostly" is the historian's, written more than a century ago, so it tells us where to look rather than what we will find. Look at the gables, the stacks, and the places where tiles hung on a wall meet tiles laid on a roof. Those are the joints where a Haslemere house tends to give itself away, usually as a damp patch that appears a storey below the real fault and a few days after the rain. Hanging tiles also hide what is behind them, so a wall that looks sound from the pavement can be wet underneath. We tap, lift and look before we call anything a repair, and we show you the photograph of what we lifted.

1.1 Low pitches and what a tile can do

The High Street has many low-pitched gabled houses. A shallow slope limits which covering is allowed, because every tile has a minimum pitch below which wind-driven rain can be pushed back up under it. Marley's published figures put the Canterbury clay plain tile at 40 degrees, the Ashdowne at 35, the Hawkins and the Acme Single Camber at 30, and the Lincoln clay pantile at 15. On a slope shallower than the tile allows, the answer is a different tile or a different underlay, never a hopeful repair. We measure the pitch before saying whether a like-for-like re-tile is even possible, and we check the maker's data sheet rather than rely on memory. If the numbers do not work, you hear that at the survey, with photographs of the slope, and not halfway up a scaffold.

1.2 Gables, verges and brick stacks

A gable finishes in a verge, the roof edge that runs up the side of the gable wall. On an exposed gable that edge takes the wind first, so the verge tiles want clips or screws behind them as well as mortar beneath. Brick stacks are the other landmark. Flaunching, the mortar cap that grips the pots, cracks with age and lets water into the brickwork below, and the lead flashings round the base of a stack can fail without a sign indoors. Our chimney repairs page describes repointing, rebuilding or capping a stack, and our pitched roofing page covers the slope that surrounds it.

St Bartholomew's church has a grey stone tower with a stone-slated roof. The parish church, Anglican and listed Grade II (list entry 1243899, first listed on 19 September 1977), serves the town. While services continue there, the ecclesiastical exemption applies: alterations go through the Church of England's faculty system rather than the council's listed building process, though planning rules still apply to anything that alters the exterior. Churchyard trees, bats and nesting birds also bear on any roof job here, because bats and nesting birds are protected. Stone slates are heavy, uneven and laid in diminishing courses, the largest at the eaves and the smallest near the ridge, so anyone lifting and relaying them has to sort each slate by size before it goes back. That is a different skill from tiling, and a roofer should say honestly whether it is theirs.

3.1 Foundry Road, Hammer Lane and the works behind the names

The names Foundry Road and Hammer Lane recall ironworks in the parish, and brick and tile works were among its industries in the early 20th century. The ground is Lower Greensand, with Atherfield Clay and Wealden Clay alongside. The industrial past matters on a roof because old clay tiles do not match new ones for colour, thickness or camber. The building conservation site buildingconservation.com notes that Marley's 60-year figure for clay tile "is clearly not a reliable guide" on old peg-tile roofs, which means age alone settles nothing. A repair on an old roof starts with the tiles already up there, sorted by condition, with sound ones reused and the cracked ones replaced from a matching reclaimed batch where we can find it.

3.2 Lead, stacks and the next ten years

The lead at a stack or a wall can outlive the tiles around it. MyJobQuote's guide reckons a lead flashing can see out more than 80 years, though a patch to one failed corner costs far less than stripping the roof. Royston's brochure lists lead codes 4, 5 and 6 for flashings, and the code is chosen to suit the detail, not the other way round. Thicker lead is stiffer and harder to dress into brick courses; thinner lead dresses well but wears faster where it is walked on. When we climb a Haslemere roof, we photograph each flashing, each stack and each valley, then say which will see out the decade and which will not. Our lead roofing and leadwork page describes the sheet and the dressing in detail. The quote that follows is one total price in writing, so you can set it against the photographs and decide how much of the list to do now.