Flat Roof Repairs · Croydon & the CR postcodes
Flat Roof Repairs In Croydon
Is there water sitting on your extension roof?
Felt, rubber, fibreglass and asphalt repairs to extensions, dormers, garages and porches across Croydon
Most flat roofs in Croydon do not fail because the covering was bad. They fail because the deck underneath them was never laid to enough of a fall, so water sits on the surface instead of running off it. A puddle that is still there two days after the rain is the fault. The split in the felt is only the symptom.
Free flat roof repairs quote
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.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
What you are seeing, and what it usually means
None of this replaces somebody actually looking at your roof, but it will tell you roughly what you are dealing with and how much of a hurry to be in.
A puddle that never dries out
Insufficient fall, or a deck that has sagged between joists. Recovering the roof without correcting this simply resets the clock on the same failure.
Blistering and bubbling across the surface
Moisture trapped between layers, expanding in the sun. Common on older felt that has been overlaid rather than stripped.
Splits along a straight line
Movement in the deck below, usually at a board joint. It will reopen through any patch put over the top of it unless the movement is dealt with.
Water coming in at the wall, not the middle
The upstand or the flashing where the flat roof meets the house. This is where the majority of flat roof leaks actually originate, and it is the detail most patch repairs ignore.
Why use us for flat roof repairs in Croydon
We look at the falls first
Before anything about materials is discussed. If water is standing, that is the conversation, because no covering survives being permanently submerged.
Four systems, honestly compared
Felt, EPDM rubber, GRP fibreglass and asphalt all have a place. You get told which suits your roof and your budget rather than whichever one we happen to prefer.
Upstands and flashings done properly
Where the flat roof meets the wall is where most of them leak. Dressed correctly into the brickwork, not smeared over with mastic.
The deck gets checked
Soft or rotten boards are replaced before anything goes over them. Laying a new covering onto a wet deck traps the problem underneath it.
Repair where repair is right
A sound felt roof with one split does not need stripping. You will be told when a repair is the sensible answer and when it is throwing money at a roof that is finished.
Ten year guarantee
On the workmanship, with the manufacturer's own cover on the membrane on top of it.
Croydon has an unusual number of flat roofs
Two things put more flat roofs per street here than in most of outer London. The first is the rear extension: the interwar semis across Shirley, Selsdon, Sanderstead and Coulsdon have been extended at the back on a very large scale, and almost all of those extensions are flat. The second is the estate building of the 1960s and 1970s, most visibly at Forestdale on the edge of Selsdon, where flat and very shallow pitched roofs were the design language rather than an afterthought. On the Victorian terraces further north, the back addition is frequently flat as well. It adds up to a lot of houses whose weak point is a roof nobody can see from the street.
"Standing water, not the covering, is what has usually finished a flat roof by the time somebody rings us about a split in it."
Based on the flat roof repairs jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
How a flat roof repairs job runs
You describe the symptom
Which room, which wall, and does it only happen when the rain comes from a particular direction? That last question narrows things down more than people expect, before anybody has been anywhere near the roof.
Somebody comes and looks - loft included
Free, with no expectation that it becomes a job. Half the evidence is on the underside of the roof, so the loft gets looked at as a matter of course rather than as a favour.
You are told the cause before the price
In plain terms, with photographs where they make the point better than words. If you want to take that diagnosis to somebody else for a second quote, that is entirely reasonable.
A written, itemised price
Access priced as its own line, so it is obvious what you are paying to reach the work as opposed to doing it. The figure on the quote is the figure on the invoice.
The work, back to something solid
Failed material comes out until there is sound timber and sound masonry underneath. Matched covering, code 4 lead at the junctions, mortar mixed to suit the brick it is going onto.
Checked, cleared and guaranteed
The details either side get checked while the access is still up, the site is cleared, finished photographs come to you, and the written guarantee is handed over the same day.
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
Three questions worth asking whoever you use
Including us. If the answers do not stand up, that tells you something useful.
Do they mention the falls?
Anyone who quotes to recover a flat roof without going up and checking where the water sits is quoting for a covering, not a solution. Ask where the water currently goes and what will change.
What are they doing at the edges?
Drip trims, upstands and the junction with the house wall are where flat roofs actually fail. A quote that details the middle and is vague about the perimeter is the wrong way round.
Is the deck included?
A quote that assumes the boards are sound, with a vague note about extra charges if they are not, can double on the day. Better to have the deck inspected and any replacement priced before you agree to anything.
Which Flat Roof System?
There is no single best answer. It depends on the size of the roof, whether anyone walks on it, and how long you intend to be in the house.
| Comparison point | EPDM rubber | Torch-on felt |
|---|---|---|
| Typical life | Commonly quoted at 30 years or more, and it is a single sheet with no seams on a domestic extension. | Around 20 years for a good three layer system, less for cheaper two layer work. |
| Seams | Usually none on an extension-sized roof, which removes the most common point of failure. | Lapped and torched joints throughout. Done well they last; done badly they are the first thing to go. |
| Cost | Higher up front. | The cheapest of the four systems to install. |
| Complicated shapes | Harder. Lots of upstands, pipes and corners mean lots of cutting and bonding. | Easier to work around awkward details and small areas. |
| Foot traffic | Tolerates occasional access. Not a balcony surface without a walkway laid over it. | Similar, and easier to patch locally if something does get damaged. |
| Naked flame on site | None. Cold applied, which matters on a timber deck against an old house. | Gas torch used on the deck, with the fire precautions that implies. |
GRP and asphalt, for completeness
Fibreglass gives a hard, seamless, walkable finish and suits balconies and small complicated roofs, but it is unforgiving of movement in the deck below and needs the timber to be properly dry when it is laid. Mastic asphalt is the traditional answer, extremely long lived and still the right call on some of the older flat roofs in the north of the borough, but it is a specialist trade and priced accordingly. Both get mentioned when they are genuinely the better option for your roof.
See what a repair costs
What flat roof repairs costs in Croydon
A localised repair to a sound flat roof is usually a few hundred pounds. Recovering a typical single storey rear extension in Croydon runs into the low thousands, with the covering system, the size and the state of the deck driving most of the difference. Where the falls need building up before the new covering goes down, that is priced as its own line so you can see what you are paying to correct the original mistake.
See the full cost guideFlat Roof Repairs - your questions
How long should a flat roof last?
A three layer felt system laid properly gives around twenty years. EPDM rubber is commonly quoted at thirty or more. GRP sits somewhere between the two and depends heavily on how dry the deck was when it went on. In every case the falls matter more than the material - a well laid roof holding a permanent puddle will not reach any of those figures.
Can you just patch it?
Sometimes, and where it is right we will. A single split in an otherwise sound felt roof is a legitimate repair. What we will not do is patch a roof that is blistered across its whole surface, or one holding standing water, because that is spending money to buy a few months.
Do I need planning permission for a new flat roof?
For like-for-like recovering, no, anywhere in the borough. The exception worth knowing is the Chatsworth Road conservation area in Addiscombe, where an Article 4 direction has removed permitted development rights for all alterations to the roof of a dwelling house since January 2016. If you are in Caterham or Warlingham you are in Tandridge rather than Croydon, and if you are in Wallington you are in Sutton, so check with the right authority.
Why does my extension roof leak at the house wall?
Because that junction is the hardest part of a flat roof to get right and the easiest to bodge. The covering should turn up the wall to form an upstand, and that upstand should be covered by a flashing properly chased into the brickwork. A great many are finished with a bead of mastic instead, which lasts about two years.
Can a flat roof be insulated at the same time?
Yes, and if the covering is coming off anyway it is the moment to do it. Insulating above the deck as a warm roof avoids the condensation problems that come from insulating between the joists in a shallow space. It adds to the cost and it changes the height of the finished roof, so it needs deciding before the job starts rather than during it.
Is there any way to fix standing water without recovering the whole thing?
Occasionally. Tapered insulation can be laid over an existing deck to create a fall, which is less disruptive than rebuilding the structure below. It is not cheap and it raises the roof level, so it does not suit every situation, but where the deck is otherwise sound it can be the sensible answer.
Also worth a look: Roof leak repairs ·Guttering ·Roof replacement
Where we work
Flat Roof Repairs across the whole borough and over the boundary where it makes sense - from the Victorian terraces at the Thornton Heath end up onto the chalk at Kenley, Coulsdon and Sanderstead, and out to Wallington, Caterham, Warlingham and West Wickham.
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.
Get a free flat roof repairs quote
Ring and describe what you can see, or send a message and somebody will come out and put their head in your loft. It costs nothing to find out what is wrong. The price you are quoted is the price you pay. And if the answer turns out to be that it can wait another few years, that is what you will be told.