Roofers in Plaistow

Chichester District Council's conservation area appraisal, written in 2013, is the best description of what Plaistow's roofs are made from. It says traditional materials include handmade plain clay tiles, timber framing with painted panels or stained weather-boarding, and local Wealden greensand stone. That description is a useful brief for any quote, because it tells us to expect old tile and detailed carpentry and to bring matching reclaimed stock instead of a catalogue tile. It adds that the roofs are steeply pitched and clay-tiled, with substantial chimney stacks, and that nearly 30 listed buildings sit inside the conservation area, many from the 17th century or earlier. The village lies in the Low Weald, in wooded and undulating country, where glassmaking and iron making once used local ironstone and charcoal.

1.1 Why handmade tiles are repaired one by one

Plain clay tiles are small and gently curved, each hooked over a batten (the narrow timber lath that carries a course), and a roof is thousands of them lapped so that water passes from one to the next. Handmade ones vary in colour and surface, which gives an old roof its soft, mottled look. Marley quotes a minimum life of 60 years for clay tiles, though building conservation writers say that for old peg-tile roofs the figure cannot be trusted. A sound old tile can outlive its fixings, so the tile is often fine and the nail or peg behind it has gone. That is why we look under the courses before suggesting a re-roof, and why a repair here usually means replacing single tiles with reclaimed ones of a matching colour and thickness. Our roof repairs page explains what that visit involves.

1.2 Stacks, hips and the way water leaves the roof

Large chimney stacks catch rain on every face, and at the point where a stack leaves the slope a lead flashing has to be dressed over the tiles. Cracked pointing and a tired flaunching, the mortar fillet that beds the pots, let water down the flue. On a hipped roof, the sloping corners where two slopes meet are capped with hip tiles. Under the 2014 revision of BS 5534, ridge and hip tiles get a mechanical fixing as well as their mortar, so an older bedded cap often wants a clip or screw added. Our chimney repairs page covers the stack-side work. Where a steep pitch sheds water quickly, the gutters have to cope with a sudden rush from a long slope. Steepness also affects access, because every tile sits higher above the ground and working from ladders alone is rarely safe, so the plan usually includes a scaffold or a proper roof ladder system.

Stone House is the only roof in the conservation area laid with Horsham stone slates, and the appraisal singles it out as the only stone-faced building too. Horsham stone is riven into thick sandstone slabs and laid in diminishing courses, largest slabs low down and smallest high up. A roof like that is a heavy structure, held up by timbers that have to be sound, and the slabs are sorted by size as they come off so that the same stones go back in the same order. It is not a roof for a general repair crew to improvise on, and the sensible first step is a survey that looks at the timbers as well as the stone. We check for slipped slabs, failed pegs, soft battens and sagging rafters, and one price in writing follows for whatever the survey finds. Our Horsham stone roofing page explains how that work is planned.

3.1 Holy Trinity and its wooden belfry

Holy Trinity Church is unlisted. It was rebuilt in the early 1850s, in 1851 according to the National Churches Trust and in 1853 to 1854 according to Sussex Parish Churches, in local sandstone, with a wooden belfry and spirelet, and its clock went up in 1887. A Church of England church uses the Church's own faculty system for works, and a general roofer's useful part is the survey: the roof slopes, the valleys, the lead and the rainwater goods. Leaf litter and moss in the valleys between nave, aisle and porch can send water over the edge and down a wall, and clearing them costs far less than replastering inside. A wooden belfry is carpentry first and roofing second, and should be assessed by someone who works on timber towers.

3.2 Greensand, ironstone and a scaffold on the lane

The appraisal links Plaistow's building stone to the Wealden greensand and notes that local ironstone and charcoal supported glassmaking and iron making. The practical lesson is that stone, timber and clay each take weather in their own way: sandstone can flake at the face, oak opens in cracks as it dries and a clay tile can lose its surface layer. A repair that treats them as one material soon comes undone. Most Plaistow jobs also need scaffold on a narrow lane, and the licence for it comes from the county council as highway authority, and you can ask your roofer who makes the application. We build that wait into the programme from the first day, so the roof is not left open while paperwork catches up.