Roofers in Lancing

Adur District Council adopted its North Lancing Conservation Area Appraisal on 7 August 2024, and the document gives the best account of the village roofs. It is worth reading before you plan any work, because it shows what the area values and where to look for guidance. Flint is the most characteristic local material. Above the flint, roofs are clay tiles and slates, with some localised use of Horsham slab roofing, for example on the north aisle of the church and at Grants Manor. St James the Less, the parish church, combines flint rubble with ashlar dressings beneath a central tower. Those are the buildings that set the tone in North Lancing.

1.1 Horsham slab, the stone that weighs like a floor

Horsham slab is a thin sandstone, split from the ground in West Sussex, laid in diminishing courses (rows that shrink from eaves to ridge) and pegged to the battens. It is very heavy, so the timbers beneath must carry it, and a roof that has lost slabs is never patched with a lighter tile without thought for the load. Slabs are lifted, sorted and relaid, and the sound ones go back. Because slab is such a heavy stone, we also check the rafters and wall plates whenever a section is stripped, since a long load can show up as sagging, and replacement slabs are salvaged or sourced to match in colour and thickness. Our Horsham stone roofing page explains how that work is done and what it costs to get wrong.

1.2 Clay tile and slate against flint

Where a clay tile or slate slope meets a flint wall, lead flashing makes the seal. Flint is hard to cut into, so the lead is usually let into a mortar joint, and a joint that has eroded lets water in behind it. A slipped slate is held by a tingle, a metal strip bent to grip it without lifting the course above. Where a stack can be repaired, we repair it rather than take it down. A listed house is stricter still: alterations that touch its special character need listed building consent from Adur District Council. On any older house we match tile or slate for colour and texture, so a repair blends in when seen from the street. Our chimney repairs page covers the lead and the pointing round a stack.

Lancing sits between Worthing and Shoreham, from the beach at South Lancing up to the chalk slopes of the South Downs at Lancing Ring, with the Adur on its eastern boundary. A roof near the beach takes sea weather in full, with gales, rain driven hard and salty air, so its verges, eaves and flat-roof trims are the first things we check. Soffits and fascias, the boards under the eaves and along the gutter line, are checked for rot at the same time, and so are the ridge and verge fixings, which take the first lift from a gale. One beneath the downs sits further from the shore. Either way, flat roofs, extensions and garages are often where a repair is most worthwhile, and where a poor repair costs most later.

3.1 Flat roofs and their falls

BS 6229:2025 replaced the 2018 edition in December 2025 and retains the 1:80 minimum finished fall. Roofers design steeper, around 1:40, to leave room for deflection and for the finish. Where a house or bungalow has a flat-roofed garage or extension, that is often the part that leaks first. Standing water is a common cause of repeat flat roof leaks, and fresh felt laid over a puddle does not cure it. EPDM is a synthetic rubber sheet, and GreenSpec expects it to serve for 20 to 30 years. Upstands (where the covering is turned up a wall or kerb) are the next suspect after ponding, so we lift the edge of the old covering to see whether the deck beneath is dry. A soft or stained deck means a new board and a proper fall, and a dry one means the covering alone can be renewed. Our flat roofing page sets out the coverings, and a sloping deck gets the water moving before the membrane goes on.

3.2 Scaffold in West Sussex

Putting scaffold on a Lancing pavement means a West Sussex County Council licence, and it is worth asking up front who makes the application. The council wants 10 working days' notice, and £266 buys a month, a timetable we build into the start date. Adur District Council also runs building control, so a notifiable job goes through it or a registered building control approver, and we deal with the paperwork. Replacing a flat roof's waterproof membrane counts as renovation under Approved Document L, so more than 50 per cent of a roof's surface renovated can bring an insulation upgrade into the job, to 0.16 W/(m²·K) for an existing roof under Table 4.3 of the 2021 edition.