Roofers in Lavant

Lavant parish lies on the southern slopes of the Downs, running down towards Chichester, with the River Lavant flowing through it from north to south. In East Lavant the older houses are built from what the ground gave: flint from the chalk, brick for the corners, and thatch on the oldest roofs. One house has walls of split flints with 17th-century brick quoins. Nearby are an early-17th-century timber-framed cottage with a thatched roof and another thatched cottage of plastered flint or rubble. Roofs on houses like these are rarely level. Walls move, timbers dip and a ridge line wanders, so a good repair follows the building as it stands.

1.1 Where a tiled roof meets flint

A flint wall has no flat face for a flashing to sit against. A flashing is the metal strip that keeps water out where a roof butts a wall. Here the lead is dressed over the tiles and tucked into a mortar joint, and that joint has to be sound before the lead goes in. We prefer a lime-based mortar in an old flint wall, because a hard cement mix cracks as the wall moves and lets water in. Where a stack of brick stands on a flint gable, the junction between the two materials is the first thing we check for damp. Our lead roofing and leadwork page shows how the sheet is cut and dressed.

1.2 Living next to thatch

A thatch roof belongs to a thatcher, and we do not touch it. What we do is look after the roof beside it. A tiled outbuilding or a slated extension attached to a thatched cottage shares a wall and often a gutter, and rainwater from the slope behind can run down the thatch if the gutter is blocked. We check that the water from our roof goes where it should and not onto the neighbouring one. If the cottage is listed, we also read the entry to see what the listing covers before we quote for anything beyond a repair.

1.3 Tiles and the clay-tile eye

Where a cottage roof is plain clay tile and a few need replacing, we try to match them by size, colour and texture. A new tile among old ones glows for a few years, so we mix tiles across the slope to soften it. On a slope that has sagged over centuries, the timber laths under the tiles are often irregular too, and we level the line without forcing the whole roof into a shape it never had. Our pitched roofing page explains the stripping and relaying involved.

The railway that follows the river once ran through Mid Lavant, and the station there carried only goods traffic from July 1935. The line is part of the village story, a sign that this was once a working valley, with cottages and farms built close to the water. Houses here sit on the slopes between the Downs and the plain, so roofs take the weather from several sides: gales, driving rain and the wet that gathers in a valley. A cottage that has stood for three or four hundred years has met every kind of storm, and its roof has usually been patched in response to each one. We read those patches like a log of the house's past, noting where a slate or tile was swapped, where lead was added and where a valley was relined, so that the repair we propose is a considered next step and never a guess.

3.1 Gutters, downpipes and the valley's rainwater

On a hillside house, water runs off the slope behind and meets the roof below. Gutters fill with leaves and moss, and a blocked gutter sends water down the wall or into the eaves, where it rots a fascia (the board along the roof edge) and stains the ceiling. On a first visit we clear and inspect the full roofline and say plainly whether the problem is the gutter or the roof. Our guttering, soffit and fascia page covers the repairs and replacements.

3.2 Chimneys on older cottages

Where a cottage has a brick stack, each face of it takes the weather. The mortar joints soften, the flaunching on top cracks, and the lead around the base lets go. A stack that leans or sheds brick wants a closer look from a ladder or a camera before anyone decides on a repoint or a rebuild. We say which it is, with photographs, and you receive the quote in writing. If the house is listed or in the conservation area, we check what permission, if any, is needed before the work is booked.

3.3 When access is the hard part

Where a lane is tight or a garden slopes, scaffold gets awkward. If it would stand on the highway, the scaffolding firm asks West Sussex County Council for a licence, and the council asks for 10 working days' notice. We plan the date around that and tell you early, so you are not left waiting with a tarpaulin on the roof.