Roof Replacement · Croydon & the CR postcodes
Roof Replacement In Croydon
Has your roof genuinely reached the end, or is it being sold to you?
Full strip and re-cover on Victorian, interwar and postwar roofs across Croydon
This is the largest thing most people ever spend on the outside of their house, and it is the job with the widest gap between what is necessary and what is sold. So the starting position here is scepticism. A roof needs replacing when the fixings have failed across the whole slope, when the timber below has gone, or when you have already paid for the same repair three times. Not because it looks tired from the pavement.
Free roof replacement 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.
Slates sliding off with no wind and no obvious damage
Nail sickness. The fixings have corroded through across the roof, and every slate on it is now held by friction. This is the clearest genuine case for replacement and it is common on the Victorian stock in Addiscombe, South Norwood and Thornton Heath.
Widespread spalling and lamination on tiles
Frost has got into the material itself over decades. Individual replacements will not stop it because the whole batch is at the same stage.
Sagging visible along the ridge or between rafters
Structural, not covering. It needs looking at properly before anything else is decided, and it may be a timber job rather than a roofing one.
Repairs in three or four different places over a few years
The pattern rather than any single fault. At some point the running total of patches exceeds the cost of doing it once, and it is worth doing the arithmetic honestly.
Why use us for roof replacement in Croydon
You get told when not to
The survey is free and there is no obligation, which means there is no cost to us in telling you your roof is fine. Plenty of people are told exactly that.
Matched to what is already there
Slate for slate on the Victorian terraces, the right profile of concrete tile on the interwar semis. A roof that looks wrong for the street devalues the house.
Everything underneath renewed
Breathable membrane, new treated battens, new fixings. Re-covering onto old battens is a false economy that is invisible from the ground and obvious in ten years.
Ventilation designed in
Eaves and ridge ventilation to current standards. A tightly sealed modern covering over an unventilated loft creates condensation problems the old roof never had.
Written, itemised and fixed
Scaffold, strip and disposal, materials, labour, leadwork and rainwater goods all as separate lines, so you can see what you are buying and compare quotes properly.
Ten year workmanship guarantee
On top of the manufacturer's cover on the covering itself, which varies by product and gets confirmed for your specific job.
Three eras of roof, three different jobs
Replacing a roof in Croydon means one of about three jobs depending on where you are. In the north - Thornton Heath, Norbury, South Norwood, Addiscombe - it is Victorian and Edwardian terraces under natural slate, usually with parapets, shared gutters and a back addition with its own small roof, and the honest question is whether to re-slate or to move to a different covering. In the middle and south - Shirley, Selsdon, Sanderstead, Purley, Coulsdon, Kenley - it is interwar semis and detached houses under concrete tile, hipped, with deep eaves, and the work is more straightforward but the roofs are bigger. On the New Addington estate it is long runs of shallow-pitched postwar terraces where the pitch itself limits what coverings are permissible. All three need pricing differently and none of them is the same job.
"For every roof we survey that genuinely needs replacing, several more turn out to have a decade or more left in them and to need a day's work instead."
Based on the roof replacement jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
How a roof replacement 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.
Did anybody survey it properly?
A replacement quoted from the pavement, or from a drone flypast alone, is a quote for a product. Somebody should have been on the roof and in the loft before a number that size is put in front of you.
Is the quote itemised?
Scaffold, strip and disposal, membrane, battens, covering, leadwork, ridge, ventilation, rainwater goods. If it is one number, you cannot compare it with anything and you cannot tell what has been left out.
What is happening to the battens?
Re-covering onto existing battens saves the contractor a day and costs you a decade. Ask the question directly and get the answer in writing.
Natural Slate Or Concrete Tile?
The choice that comes up on almost every Croydon replacement, and the honest answer depends more on the house than on the material.
| Comparison point | Natural slate | Concrete tile |
|---|---|---|
| Life expectancy | 80 to 100 years or more for good Welsh slate. Frequently the fixings fail long before the slate does. | Around 50 to 60 years, with surface finish deteriorating earlier than the tile itself. |
| Weight | Lighter. Suits the original roof structure on Victorian houses that were built for it. | Heavier. On an older roof designed for slate, the structure has to be checked before switching. |
| Cost | Significantly more, both material and labour. | The cheaper option, and the reason most interwar roofs were built in it. |
| Appearance | Right on Victorian and Edwardian houses, and expected in the conservation areas. | Right on interwar and postwar stock, where slate would look imported. |
| Shallow pitches | Copes with lower pitches than most tiles, which matters on some back additions. | Each profile has a minimum pitch. On the shallow postwar roofs this genuinely restricts the options. |
| Repairability later | Individual slates replaced easily by anybody competent. | Easy while the profile is still made. Discontinued profiles get awkward. |
Before you agree to anything
Get more than one quote, and get them itemised so they can actually be laid side by side. Ask each contractor what they found in the loft, and be suspicious of anyone who did not go up there. Ask what happens to the battens, what membrane is going on, and how the roof will be ventilated. And be wary of a price that is only available today - a roof is not a timeshare, and any figure worth having is still worth having next week.
See the full cost guide
What roof replacement costs in Croydon
A full replacement on a Croydon house runs into the thousands and on larger or taller properties well beyond that. Scaffold, the size and complexity of the roof, and the covering chosen account for most of the spread, and a Victorian terrace with a three storey frontage and a back addition costs meaningfully more than a two storey semi with a simple hipped roof. The cost guide sets out what each element contributes so you can sanity check any quote you are given, including ours.
See the full cost guideRoof Replacement - your questions
How do I know I actually need a new roof?
The strongest single indicator is slates coming off with no weather to explain it, which means the nails have corroded through across the whole slope. After that: widespread frost damage to the tiles themselves, rot in the battens or rafters, and a pattern of repeated repairs in different places. Individual slipped tiles, moss growth and a generally weathered appearance are not, on their own, reasons to replace a roof.
How long does a roof replacement take?
A straightforward two storey semi is usually about a week once the scaffold is up. Terraces with back additions, complicated hips and valleys, or anything three storeys, run longer. Weather moves it, because there is a limit to how much roof anyone should responsibly have open at once.
Do I need planning permission?
For a like-for-like replacement, normally no. It becomes a planning matter if you are changing the material or the roof shape, if you are in one of Croydon's 21 conservation areas, or if the building is listed. In Addiscombe's Chatsworth Road area the Article 4 direction requires permission for all alterations to the roof of a dwelling house. If you are in Caterham or Warlingham you are under Tandridge, Wallington is Sutton and West Wickham is Bromley, so confirm with the correct council before ordering materials.
Do I need building regulations approval?
Renewing more than about a quarter of a roof's area is normally notifiable work under Part L, which in practice means most full replacements. It is dealt with either through building control or under a competent person scheme. The practical effect is usually that insulation and ventilation have to be brought up to current standards as part of the job, which is worth knowing at quote stage rather than discovering later.
Can I stay in the house while it is done?
Yes, and almost everyone does. It is noisy, there will be dust in the loft, and there is scaffold across your windows for the duration. The roof is never left open overnight in a way that would let water in. Cars need moving off the drive and anything precious in the loft should come out first.
Will you take the old roof away?
Yes, disposal is included and it appears as its own line in the quote. On most Croydon roads that means a skip and a permit from the council to put it on the highway, and that permit cost is in the price rather than added later.
Also worth a look: Roof leak repairs ·Fascias and soffits ·Roof repair cost guide
Where we work
Roof Replacement 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 roof replacement 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.