Caterham · CR3
Roof Repairs In Caterham
Is your Caterham roof on the Hill or in the Valley, and is it losing tiles?
Ridge, hip and tile repairs for Victorian, interwar and postwar homes across CR3
Caterham is really two towns. Caterham Valley sits at the bottom with its Victorian and Edwardian houses, built after the railway arrived. Caterham-on-the-Hill is above it on the downs, with interwar and postwar estates around the old barracks site. The steep ground between them gives some awkward roofs: houses built into the slope, eaves at different heights, extensions stepped up the hill. The valley also funnels the wind. Ridge and hip tiles get lifted on houses that do not look exposed at all, because the gust comes up the valley side rather than across open ground. Most of the work we do in Caterham starts at the top of the roof.
Free roof survey in Caterham
Four details and somebody will come and look at it. There is no charge for the visit, no obligation afterwards, and if the answer is that your roof is fine, that is what you will be told.
The people behind it
Caterham, and a Croydon family firm
Caterham shares the CR postcode but answers to Tandridge, and the town splits between the valley floor and the hill above it. The firm you'd be calling is run by two brothers, John and Mark, who share everything from quoting to managing the team.
Steep sites up on the hill can make for awkward roof shapes, and that's when two people who think alike going through the numbers earns its keep. They'd like to think it makes them twice as good as your average roofer. Customers often just call it refreshing.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
Hill and Valley: one town, two building stocks
For most of its history Caterham was a small downland parish. The railway changed that. A line up the valley from Purley brought commuters, and the Valley filled with Victorian villas and Edwardian terraces built from brick and roofed in slate or clay. On the Hill, the Guards depot at Caterham Barracks shaped the town for over a hundred years. The barracks closed and has since been redeveloped, and its historic core is now a conservation area. Around it are the interwar and postwar houses that make up most of Caterham-on-the-Hill.
Two stocks bring two sets of problems. In the Valley you get ageing slate on Victorian roofs, nail fatigue, worn lead in valleys and parapet gutters, and big old chimneys. On the Hill you get concrete tile, mortar-bedded ridges and hips, and plenty of flat-roofed extensions and garages. What both share is the slope. Many houses on Church Hill and the roads towards Whyteleafe and Chaldon stand on ground that drops sharply, so scaffold, ladders and even working out which slope faces the wind take more thought than they would on flat ground.
Roof repairs Caterham asks for most
Storm Damage Repairs
Gusts funnelled up the Caterham valley lift ridge and hip tiles first. We make the roof watertight quickly and record everything your insurer will want to see.
Read more about storm damage repairs in CaterhamChimney Repairs
Victorian houses in Caterham Valley have tall stacks that take the full force of the wind. Worn pointing, split flaunching and tired lead flashings are where they start to leak.
Read more about chimney repairs in CaterhamRoof Replacement
Some original Valley slate and early Hill concrete tile is near the end of its life. When repairs stop making sense, we tell you so and quote the re-roof plainly.
Read more about roof replacement in CaterhamThose three come up most on Caterham roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
Why Caterham's slopes and wind change the job
Up here the ground and the wind set the terms. A roof that would be an afternoon's work in Thornton Heath can take planning in Caterham.
Ridges and hips fixed to stay
Mortar alone does not hold ridge and hip tiles against gusts coming up the valley. We use mechanical fixings, either clipped dry systems or screwed tiles, so the top of the roof stays put.
Steep-site access worked out properly
When a house drops away to the back garden, the scaffold has to start lower and go higher. We measure that at the visit and show it on the quote as its own figure.
Valley slate treated as slate
Victorian slate roofs fail at the nails before the slates. We refix with copper nails or tingles where that suits, and say clearly when nail fatigue has spread too far for repair to be sensible.
Tandridge rules, not Croydon's
Caterham is Tandridge District Council, in Surrey. We know the difference, so you are not handed Croydon planning advice that has nothing to do with your house.
Odd roof shapes read correctly
Split-level houses have hidden valleys and abutments that are easy to miss from the road. We get round the back and up into the loft to find them.
"On Caterham jobs we are regularly surprised by which houses lose ridge tiles. It is often the ones tucked into the valley side, not the most exposed ones on top."
Based on Caterham jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in Caterham, step by step
Ring, or send a photo
A picture from the pavement or the back garden is often enough to tell whether this is a today job or one that can sensibly wait until next week.
The free visit
We look at the roof from both the road and the garden, as split-level houses on Caterham's slopes often hide a whole roof section from the front. Then into the loft to check the underside, especially below the ridge.
What failed, and what let it
Before any figure is mentioned you hear what has gone wrong and the reason it went, with photographs from the roof and from the loft side.
A fixed price on paper
Each item on its own line. Scaffold or a tower, if one is needed at all, sits separately so you can hold it up against anyone else's quote.
The repair itself
Loose ridge and hip tiles are lifted, cleaned and refixed mechanically. Slipped slates in the Valley go back on with tingles or copper nails. On the Hill, broken concrete tiles are swapped and any failing flat section is stripped back to a sound deck.
Signed off
Photographs of the finished work, gutters cleared of anything the job dropped into them, and the 10 year guarantee in writing before anyone leaves Caterham.
The 10 year guarantee, and why it is safe to offer
Promising a roof will stay dry is easy. What counts is what happens if it does not. Work booked through Roof Repairs Croydon carries a 10 year workmanship guarantee, on paper, handed to you on the day and written in language you can actually read. The slates, tiles, lead, mortar, membranes and rainwater goods carry their own manufacturer cover on top of that. It varies by product, so you get told which cover applies to your job rather than one headline number that would be wrong on most of them.
Here is the reason a guarantee like that is not a risk. Repairs come back for one reason above all others: the fault was never found in the first place. Somebody went up, saw a stain on the ceiling below, mended whatever looked worst directly above it, and left. Water does not cooperate with that approach. It lands on a slate, runs under it, drops onto a rafter and travels along the rafter before it finds anywhere to fall. On a wide hipped roof in Sanderstead or Shirley that can be five metres from where it came in.
Find the entry point and the repair holds for years. Miss it and no amount of guarantee wording helps anybody. That is why the survey happens before the price, and it is why, if the same water finds its way back into your house inside the guarantee period, putting it right costs you nothing.
10 year
Workmanship guarantee
1,000+
Roofs put right
Covered
Public liability insurance
Per product
Maker's own warranty
What to do in Caterham
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
East Surrey Museum
A small volunteer-run museum on Stafford Road in Caterham Valley, open since 1980. It covers the archaeology, geology and social history of east Surrey. Check the opening days before you go, as it is only open a few days a week.
View on Google Maps - East Surrey Museum
Caterham Viewpoint
An open grassy spot on Gravelly Hill, right on the North Downs Way. It looks south across the Weald, and on a clear day you can see as far as the South Downs. There are benches for a rest after the climb.
View on Google Maps - Caterham Viewpoint
St Peter and St Paul, Chaldon
A Grade I listed church just south of Caterham, founded before 1086. Inside is a wall painting of the Last Judgement from around 1170. It was whitewashed over and only rediscovered in 1869.
View on Google Maps - St Peter and St Paul, ChaldonWhere Caterham sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: about 15 minutes. Planning and building control here sit with Tandridge District Council.
What Croydon homeowners say
From roads across the borough, once the ladders had gone.
"Damp patch on our landing ceiling for about three years. Two roofers had been out and both mended the tiles directly above it, and neither made the slightest difference. This chap spent twenty minutes in the loft with a torch before he even went outside, then showed me a photo of a split in the lead in the valley about four metres away from the stain. Fixed it in a morning. Three winters on and nothing."
"Water was coming down the front bedroom wall every time it rained hard and I had convinced myself the roof was finished. It was the gutter. Half of it had dropped so the water was sitting in the middle and going over the front rather than down the pipe. He reset the brackets and cleared the gully, charged me a fraction of what I had budgeted for, and told me the roof itself had years left. Could easily have sold me a new one."
"Ours is in the Chatsworth Road conservation area and I had no idea the rules on roof work here are stricter than the rest of Croydon. He knew straight away, explained what I could and could not do without an application, and did the repair in matching slate. That saved me a very awkward conversation with the council later on."
"Lost most of the ridge tiles along the back in a February gale. Rang in the morning, sheeted the same afternoon so the weather could not get in, came back the following week when it was dry and rebedded the whole ridge properly. Sent me photos of everything for the insurance without me even asking. The bill was exactly what the quote said it would be."
"Gutters had been overflowing under the trees for years and the fascia behind them had gone soft. What I appreciated was that he explained why the timber had rotted rather than just quoting to replace it, and pointed out the new soffits needed vents or I would end up with condensation in the loft instead. Nobody had ever mentioned that to me before."
Had us out to your roof?
Two minutes writing a review does more for a small local firm than any amount of advertising, and it helps the next person in Croydon work out who to ring.
Other towns we cover, and what we do there
The same services and the same guarantee apply across every town below, from the Norbury end of the borough down to Caterham.
Roof repair costs in Caterham
On Caterham jobs the ground often costs more than the roof. A house built into a slope can need scaffold standing a storey lower at the back than at the front, which adds time and kit. Valley slate roofs are priced by how far nail fatigue has spread. A few slipped slates is a small job, but widespread fatigue means a bigger rethink. On the Hill, the main variable is usually how many mortar-bedded ridges and hips need mechanical refixing.
Read the cost guideCaterham roof repair questions
Who handles planning for roof work in Caterham?
Tandridge District Council, not Croydon. Caterham shares the CR postcode, but it is in Surrey and Tandridge has its own local plan, plus an adopted neighbourhood plan covering Caterham, Chaldon and Whyteleafe. Caterham Barracks and Chaldon are both conservation areas. Like-for-like repairs normally need no permission. Tandridge is also due to be folded into a new Surrey unitary authority, so check which body you are applying to before you send anything in.
Why do Caterham ridge tiles come off on houses that are not that exposed?
Because the valley sides funnel the wind. A gust running up a narrow valley speeds up and can hit a roof from an unexpected direction, catching ridge and hip tiles from below. Old mortar bedding has little grip left, so the tiles lift. Mechanical fixing deals with this in a way that fresh mortar does not.
My Victorian house in Caterham Valley keeps losing slates. Does it need a new roof?
Not automatically. Slates often outlast the nails holding them, so one or two slipping usually means nail fatigue rather than bad slate. If it is limited to a few areas, refixing is fine. If slates are slipping across every slope, the nails are failing everywhere and a strip and relay, reusing sound slate, often makes more sense. We will tell you which you have.
Can you get scaffold up on a steep Caterham plot?
Yes. It just takes more planning. On a plot that drops away, the scaffold starts at the lowest point and gets built up on adjustable bases so it stays level. Sometimes a tower or roof ladder from the high side will do instead. We work this out at the visit and price it as a separate line.
Ridge tiles on the lawn in Caterham?
Tell us whether you are on the Hill or in the Valley, and send a photo if you have one. That alone narrows it down. Someone comes out at no charge, checks the loft, and nothing gets started until you have read the cause and the price.