Roofers in Patching

Patching lies on the Downs' southern flank, north of the A27, and the ground under it explains the village. The slope is chalk, with clay-with-flints north of the church and Eocene clay deposits in the south. Flint comes out of that ground. The county history describes St John the Divine's as flint walls with stone dressings (the cut stone around doors, windows and corners), and Arun District Council's conservation area statement notes a predominance of flint in buildings and boundary walling, with brick, natural slate and plain clay tile making up the other main materials. For a roofer that list is useful, because it tells us what a repair in Patching should be made of before we pick up a tile.

1.1 Plain clay tiles and how they are mended

A plain clay tile is the small, flat, slightly curved tile hung on a batten (the thin timber lath each course hooks over) and laid in overlapping courses, so every tile covers the joint between two below it. When one slips or cracks, we lift the courses above, fit a replacement and check that it matches its neighbours in colour and camber. Matching matters in a village like this, because a patchwork of mismatched tiles shows from the lane. Sound tiles sitting on rotted battens often call for lifting and relaying the slope, not buying a whole new covering, and the survey photographs of the battens show you why. Our pitched roofing page describes the sequence for a clay slope: tiles off, new battens, tiles back.

1.2 Dressing lead into a flint gable

Flint walls are uneven by nature, cobbles bedded in mortar with no straight line to dress a flashing against. Lead is the usual answer because it can be shaped to the wall: one edge is turned into a slot raked out of a mortar joint, wedged tight and pointed over. Old flashings smeared with mastic or cement are a common source of stains on a chimney breast, and renewing them in lead cures a leak that tile repairs alone never would. A brick and flint stack needs the same attention at its base, where a back gutter (a lead channel behind the stack that carries water round it) keeps damp out of the house. Our lead roofing and leadwork page shows how we cut and dress it, and the verge, which is the tile edge running up a gable, needs the same care wherever it meets a flint gable.

Patching lies inside the South Downs National Park, in Arun district, and that splits the decisions. For planning, the South Downs National Park Authority decides applications for this stretch of the Park itself. Building control stays with Arun District Council. The Patching Conservation Area appears on the Park Authority's list of Arun's conservation areas, and Arun's own guidance says the Park is responsible for conservation areas inside it. So a question about a roof in the village usually goes to two offices, and we tell you which one to ring for your address, so you are not passed from one to the other. For a listed house we pull the list entry before we price anything.

3.1 Like-for-like repairs and listed buildings

Planning law overlooks works that leave a building looking the same outside, so replacing a roof like for like seldom needs an application. Listed buildings and any Article 4 direction are the caveats. The Park Authority puts routine upkeep and small repairs in the same material outside listed building consent, but anything that alters a listed building's character is a different matter. Changing clay for another tile, or slate for another slate, changes appearance. Roof windows and dormers follow their own rules, so read our guide to skylight planning permission before you commit to a layout. St John's remains in Church of England use, so work on its fabric goes through the faculty system, and exterior changes still need planning permission as well.

3.2 Garages, barns and the waterworks era

The parish carries the marks of the twentieth century too: Worthing corporation set up a pumping station here in 1927 and a reservoir was built on Patching Hill five years later. Outbuildings and garages are the other roofs a village like this keeps. The HSE's advice for any building built or refurbished before 2000 is to presume asbestos is present until a test says otherwise. A corrugated cement sheet roof on a garage from those decades should be identified before anyone drills, scrubs or breaks it, and asbestos waste travels with a consignment note, never in a skip of mixed rubbish. Weathered sheets that have not broken up fall into the non-licensed category when handled with care, and any broken pieces come down carefully by hand. A weathered fibre-cement roof is also fragile, which is why nobody should walk on it without proper boards, and why a quote for one starts with a survey from the ground and the scaffold.