Roofers in Yapton

Yapton has two conservation areas, Church Lane and Main Road with Church Road, both designated by Arun District Council in July 1994. Between them they hold the village's oldest buildings, and the county history says buildings put up before 1800 are chiefly small, usually of flint and brick, with roofs of thatch, tile or slate. Small is the operative word. A low roof on a small house has less room for a mistake, and a loft where a slow leak shows quickly. It also means the scaffold, the hoist and the skip need planning before work starts, because the lanes of an older village leave little room. Thatch is specialist work; ours is the lead flashings, the chimneys and the neighbouring tile and slate. In an older village street, access, neighbours and parked cars all feed into how we plan a day on site.

1.1 The church roof that nearly meets the churchyard

St Mary's, listed Grade I, is built chiefly of flint rubble, and its nave and aisles sit under a single roof that comes down to about a metre above the churchyard. A roof that low is easy to reach and easy to damage, and it shows how little clearance older buildings have at the eaves. Houses nearby can share the trait. Low eaves put the gutter at head height, and a gutter at head height gets knocked. We check the brackets and the falls, and refit gutters that have pulled away before they pull the fascia with them. Because the roof is within reach of the ground, moss, leaf litter and cracked tiles are easy to spot from the lane, and just as easy to ignore until the first wet week shows what they were hiding.

1.2 What the two conservation areas mean in practice

Arun's page on conservation areas lists no Article 4 Directions apart from the two at Craigweil House in Aldwick, which have no roof classes, so nothing it names reaches Yapton's roofs. A conservation area still matters for bigger changes, and a listed house needs consent before anything alters its character; our guide to skylight planning permission explains the roof-window side. Putting the same material back on a roof seldom raises a planning question, listed buildings aside, but check your address with Arun's planning officers before you commit. At survey we record the tile or slate, the chimney and the leadwork, which lets you ask the council a precise question. Extensions are where the village's older roofs most often meet newer ones, and the valley or flashing at that junction deserves a look on the same visit.

In the mid 20th century several roads were laid out south of the village on either side of Bilsham Road, with houses and bungalows including many council houses. Estates built to a pattern tend to age to a pattern, so one defect found on a roof often turns up along the whole road. Yapton lies on the coastal plain, most of the parish sits on brickearth, the Portsmouth to Arundel canal was built through its centre, and the railway reached the north end in 1846. The ground is low and open, and a bungalow on open ground has a roof that meets the weather from every side with no upper storey to shelter it. Roads built together often carry the same tile, so a match is simpler than on a roof with a mixed history, though a neighbour's re-roof is no guide to what yours needs.

3.1 Bungalow roofs, hips and low pitches

A hipped roof (one that slopes on all four sides) has ridge and hip tiles to hold, and a single-storey house puts every fault a short distance from a ceiling. The verge at each gable end sits low enough to see from the pavement, so a crack where the tiles meet the end wall, or a verge beginning to lift, is easy to notice early. Pitch matters when the covering is changed. Marley's published minimum pitches for its interlocking concrete tiles run from 12.5 degrees to 25 degrees depending on the profile, so a tile that suits one roof can leak on a shallower one. We read the data sheet for the tile on the table and measure the slope before suggesting any change of covering. Our guttering, soffits and fascias page covers the roofline that finishes these roofs.

3.2 Soffits, porches and the asbestos question

The HSE names external soffits as one place asbestos insulating board turns up, says it is hard to tell from a non-asbestos equivalent, and treats most removal as licensed work. For a soffit on a house built before 2000 we leave it undisturbed until it has been checked, and if licensed removal is needed it goes to a specialist contractor, which we tell you plainly. Where a porch or garage roof is flat, a patch that has been renewed twice may want a new deck. We look at the falls, the upstands and the edge trims before recommending anything. Many bungalow lofts were insulated after the houses were built, and insulation pushed tight to the eaves can block the ventilation gap and bring condensation, so we check the airflow at the same survey.