Kenley · CR8
Roof Repairs In Kenley
Has the last bout of wet Downs weather found a way into your Kenley roof?
Repairs for extended, multi-level roofs on Kenley's high and exposed ground
Kenley is high. The RAF built its airfield up here for the open ground, and the weather that comes with that height arrives at every roof in CR8. The Met Office station at Kenley Airfield records roughly 847mm of rain a year over about 130 days, and around 35 nights of air frost. Now add the housing. Interwar and postwar houses on Hayes Lane, Kenley Lane and the roads off Godstone Road have been extended up and down their slopes, so one roof can have three levels, two pitches and a flat section in between. Water finds the joins. That is where we start looking.
Free roof survey in Kenley
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
Kenley roofs and a two-brother business
Kenley is high on the Downs and wet and frosty by south London standards, and lots of houses there have roofs made complicated by extensions up the slope. Roof Repairs Croydon is run by brothers John and Mark, who often price jobs between them.
A complicated roof is where that pays off. Two people who think alike go through the figures, agree, and either can explain them afterwards. They like to say it makes them twice as good as a normal roofing firm, only slightly tongue in cheek.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
Kenley: high ground, steep plots, extended roofs
Most of Kenley went up in the decades either side of the Second World War, once the railway down the Caterham valley had made the hillsides easy to commute from. Plots were cut into chalk slopes, so a lot of houses sit with the front door at one level and the garden two storeys below. Older cottages survive here and there, mainly near the valley floor. The airfield on the plateau was a Battle of Britain fighter station, and its surroundings are now a conservation area. Hardly any of the houses are as they were built. Decades of owners have added rooms wherever the slope allowed.
Those extensions are the roofing story in Kenley. A rear addition built down the slope often ends up with its own roof meeting the main wall partway up, with a run of lead flashing that was right for the original builder and has been patched by everyone since. Side extensions bring valleys that were never in the first design. Many houses have a flat roof hidden between two pitched ones. Add steady rain, regular frost and wind across the open plateau, and the weak spots go long before the main tiles do.
Roof repairs Kenley asks for most
Flat Roof Repairs
The flat section linking an extension to the main house is the most common leak we find in Kenley. Ponding water and frost-split edges usually come first.
Read more about flat roof repairs in KenleyStorm Damage Repairs
Wind crossing the plateau hits ridges, hips and verges first. We make the roof safe, photograph it for your insurer and do the full repair once the weather settles.
Read more about storm damage repairs in KenleyRoof Leak Repairs
Abutments where a newer roof meets an older wall leak in a way that is hard to read from inside. We trace the water back to the flashing that has failed.
Read more about roof leak repairs in KenleyThose three come up most on Kenley roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
Why Kenley roofs need a different kind of look
Height, weather and decades of extensions add up to a roof that fails in odd places. A quick look from the drive misses most of them.
Every abutment checked
Where an extension roof meets the house wall we lift and inspect the flashing, not just glance at it. Kenley's frost opens up tired mortar joints behind lead faster than lower ground does.
Flat sections taken seriously
A short flat roof between two pitches collects water from both. We check falls and outlets, and how the edges were finished, before suggesting a patch or a new covering.
Fixings chosen for the wind
On exposed plots we use mechanical ridge and verge fixings rather than mortar on its own. Mortar alone keeps working loose on a hill this open.
Access across the slope sorted early
Scaffold on a plot that drops away needs planning. We measure it at the visit and price it as its own line, so you are not surprised later.
Honest about conservation rules
We know which Kenley roads sit in the aerodrome conservation area and which carry Article 4 directions, and what those directions actually cover. That way you hear the facts about permission rather than a guess.
"On the extended Kenley houses we work on, the joins between old and new roof sections let water in far more often than the main tiled slopes do."
Based on Kenley jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in Kenley, 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 walk the plot to see every roof level, including the ones hidden from the road, then go into the loft and any accessible voids. Abutments and flat sections get the closest look because Kenley's leaks tend to start there.
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
Failed flashings are cut out and replaced with new lead chased into the wall. Flat sections are stripped back to sound deck. Ridges and verges on exposed slopes are mechanically fixed so the next winter on the hill does not undo the work.
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 Kenley.
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 Kenley
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
Kenley Airfield
One of the most complete Second World War fighter airfields left in Britain. Fighter pens survive around the perimeter, and one holds the RAF Association memorial to the people who served there. The site is owned by the Ministry of Defence and gliding still goes on there.
View on Google Maps - Kenley Airfield
Kenley Common
Around 138 acres of grassland and woodland wrapped around the airfield, cared for by the City of London Corporation. Its waymarked heritage trail picks out the wartime remains as you go.
View on Google Maps - Kenley Common
Riddlesdown Common
Chalk downland above the Godstone Road, also looked after by the City of London. The old quarry at its south-east end was worked for chalk until 1964, and the grassy track along the top gives long views north towards central London.
View on Google Maps - Riddlesdown CommonWhere Kenley sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: about 10 minutes. Planning and building control here sit with London Borough of Croydon.
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 Kenley
Two things drive prices in Kenley more than anything else. One is access. A plot that falls away from the road needs scaffold built up from the low side, and every bag of materials gets carried down and back. The other is complexity. A roof with several levels, flat links and long abutments takes more time to strip back and make good than a straight hipped roof of the same size. The tiles themselves are rarely the expensive part.
Read the cost guideKenley roof repair questions
Does the Kenley Article 4 direction stop me repairing my roof?
No. Kenley Aerodrome is a conservation area with its own Article 4 direction, and further directions cover Kenley Lane and Hawkhirst Road, plus Mitchley Hill and Dunmail Drive nearby. On the aerodrome and on Kenley Lane and Hawkhirst Road, the rights removed are about gates, fences, walls and new accesses, which protect the open green belt character. Like-for-like roof repair needs no application. Inside the conservation area, changing a roof's appearance is a different matter, and the London Borough of Croydon is who you ask.
Why does my Kenley roof leak only in certain winds?
Because the plateau gets wind from the south and west with very little to slow it. Driven rain is pushed sideways under tile laps and behind flashings that stay dry in calm rain. If a leak only shows up in a south-westerly, tell us when you ring. It points us straight at the exposed slopes and abutments on that side.
My extension has a small flat roof between two pitched roofs. Why does it keep failing?
It is catching run-off from both pitches and then has to drain it through one outlet, often with barely any fall. Leaves and moss block that outlet, water sits, and frost works into the edges and upstands. A repair that only patches the surface will fail again. The fall, the outlet and the upstand detail all need putting right.
How quickly can you get to an emergency in Kenley?
From our base in South Croydon Kenley is about ten minutes away. If water is coming into the house we aim to get there the same day and make it safe. If it is too windy to work on the roof safely we cover what we can from inside or from a ladder then return to do the repair properly when the wind drops.
Leak somewhere in an extended Kenley roof?
Send a photo of the outside, or just tell us where the water shows up and what the wind was doing. We come out free, look at every roof level and go into the loft, then put the cause and an itemised price in writing.