Roofers in Rustington

Rustington sits half a mile inland, a couple of miles east of Littlehampton, and its old centre is easy to find. The conservation area covers the western end of The Street, and it holds the main concentration of listed buildings in the village. Arun District Council designated it in March 1986 and extended it in July 1994. The council's statement singles out flint walls as a characteristic of the area as a whole. Where flint meets a roof, the joint matters as much as the covering. Flint does not forgive a rough cut or a loose flashing, and a bad junction at a gable or a chimney soaks the wall below it for years before anyone sees the stain.

1.1 Manor Barn and the long plain-tile slope

North Barn and Manor Barn, an early or mid-19th-century building, is built in flint with plain clay tiles. A barn roof is a big, plain run of tile, and age shows in it. Plain tiles hang from the batten (the thin timber lath that carries each course) by two small nibs, and when the nibs snap a tile slides. A barn slope can look sound from the lane while a good many tiles sit loose beneath. We check from above and, where we can, from inside the roof space, then tell you whether the sound tiles can be reused. Our pitched roofing page describes the stripping and relaying of a slope step by step.

1.2 St Peter and St Paul, and listed houses

Rustington's parish church, dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, goes back to the 12th century, and some of its fabric is Caen stone brought from Normandy. A church in regular use may answer to its own denomination's approval process for works to its fabric, not to the council, which makes the parish your starting point. For listed houses, such as Knightscroft, which is Grade II*, the council decides, and anything that would change the character of the building needs consent first. Repairing with matching materials is a lighter question than altering, yet we pull up the list entry before pricing either.

1.3 Flint gables and the lead that seals them

A gable built of flint carries its roof edge on a thin line of tile and mortar, and the verge takes the weather first. Where a roof abuts flint, a strip of lead goes into a joint cut back in the wall and is dressed down over the tiles. If the joint has been filled with hard cement, it cracks as the wall moves, and water follows the crack. We rake the joint out and refill it with a mortar that suits the wall, then dress new lead. Details like that are the difference between a repair that lasts and one that returns at the next storm.

The council describes Rustington as a small agricultural community until the end of the 19th century, with its most intense development coming since the end of the First World War. The composer Hubert Parry lived and died in the village, and his hymn tune takes its name from it. For a roofer the point is simpler: houses here span more than a hundred years, and no one roof tells you about the next. A house in a quiet avenue may have been re-covered twice, while the house beside it still has its first set of battens.

3.1 Reading the age of a roof

We begin at the ridge, where capping tiles run along the crown of the roof. An older house often has a ridge and hips laid on a bed of mortar and nothing else. Since the 2014 revision of BS 5534, a mechanical fixing such as a clip or a screw is expected as well, and a loose, cracked ridge is refixed that way. Then we look at the verge, where the tiles finish along a gable, plus the valleys, where the slopes drain together, and the underlay beneath. Together they tell us whether a roof wants a repair, an overhaul or a full re-cover. Our roof repairs page sets out the smaller jobs.

3.2 Extensions, garages and flat roofs

A century of building leaves flat roofs behind: porches, bay tops, rear extensions and garages. BS 6229:2025 sets a minimum finished fall of 1:80 for a flat roof, and a roofer who lays to exactly that has no margin. We lay to a bigger fall so the water runs off. Standing water that lingers for days means the roof is not falling properly. For an older garage roof, the HSE advises treating anything put up or refurbished before 2000 as possibly containing asbestos until a check says otherwise, so testing comes before anyone drills or breaks material. Our flat roofing page lists the coverings we lay.

3.3 Chimneys on the newer streets

Where a house on the later streets has a brick stack, the flaunching at the top (the mortar bedding that holds the pots) is often the first part to crack. A stack with cracked flaunching lets water down the flue, and a ceiling stain appears below long after the damage began. We look at every stack on a first visit, from the roof and with a camera.