Warlingham · CR6
Roof Repairs In Warlingham
Is driving rain finding a way into your Warlingham roof?
Storm, leak and chimney repairs for village cottages and large detached houses on the North Downs
Warlingham sits high on the North Downs with open fields to the south and east, and the wind gets a long run at it. Rain that would drip harmlessly off a sheltered roof in Croydon gets blown sideways up here, under tile laps and in round chimneys and dormers. Around Warlingham Green and along Limpsfield Road there are older cottages with tile-hung walls. Out towards Hamsey Green, Chelsham and Farleigh the houses get bigger and the plots wider, and the roofs carry hips, valleys and dormers that give the weather more ways in.
Free roof survey in Warlingham
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
Warlingham, and how John and Mark work
Out in Warlingham the houses can be big and the roofs complicated, with open fields letting wind-driven rain find its way under laps. Get in touch and you're talking to a family business run by brothers John and Mark.
They've always worked together without falling out, and they trust each other enough that decisions come easily. On a bigger roof you've also got two people who know it properly instead of one.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
A Surrey village, not a London suburb
Warlingham is in Surrey. It's run by Tandridge District Council, it has its own parish council, and it still feels like a village. The middle is a triangular, tree-lined green with the war memorial, shops and the village hall around it. All Saints Church goes back to about 1250. The railways in the valley below brought in more people from the late 1800s, and the land around the old core filled up with large detached houses on wide plots, many extended since. Green belt keeps most of the farmland round about open.
Big plots mean big, complicated roofs: long hips, several valleys, dormers, more than one chimney and extensions tied into the main structure. Every junction is somewhere water can get in, and on ground this exposed the wind drives rain straight at them. Most Warlingham leaks start at a valley, an abutment or a chimney flashing rather than a cracked tile. The cottages near the Green have their own problems. Old tile hanging, soft mortar and timbers that have moved over the years make small repairs fiddlier than they look.
Roof repairs Warlingham asks for most
Storm Damage Repairs
Gales come across the open fields east and south of Warlingham with nothing to slow them down. We make the roof safe that day, photograph the damage for your insurer and do the full repair once the wind drops.
Read more about storm damage repairs in WarlinghamEmergency Roof Repairs
If rain is coming into a Warlingham bedroom mid-storm, we get there as fast as we safely can and stop it, then come back to deal with the cause.
Read more about emergency roof repairs in WarlinghamChimney Repairs
The bigger houses here often have two or three stacks standing in the wind. Cracked flaunching and lifted flashings let driven rain run straight down into the rooms below.
Read more about chimney repairs in WarlinghamThose three come up most on Warlingham roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
Repairs made for an exposed hilltop village
What lasts on a sheltered terrace won't always last on a Warlingham ridge. These are the things we pay most attention to up here.
Fixings suited to exposed ground
In strong wind, tiles need nailing or clipping, not just their own weight, to stay put. We check that repaired tiles and the ones around them are fixed to current standards for an exposed site.
Valleys and abutments checked first
On a roof with several hips and dormers, the junctions are where driven rain gets in. We check every valley, flashing and soaker, not only the tile someone spotted from the garden.
A lighter hand on the cottages
Older houses around the Green need matching tiles, lime mortar where it was used originally and more care than a modern build. We repair what's there instead of modernising it.
The right council from day one
Warlingham is Tandridge District Council, and the parish council is consulted on applications. We'll tell you whether your work needs permission and where it goes, so nothing is sent to Croydon by mistake.
Work booked around the weather
Some days are too windy to be on a Warlingham roof safely. If needed we fit a temporary cover to keep it dry, then come back when conditions allow a proper repair.
"In Warlingham, the leaks we're called to after a windy spell usually come in at a valley, a dormer cheek or a chimney flashing, and hardly ever through the middle of a tiled slope."
Based on Warlingham jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in Warlingham, 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 go over the whole roof, every hip, valley, dormer and chimney, note which side faces the open fields, and check the loft for damp patches that show where driven rain has been getting in.
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
Tiles refixed or clipped, failed valleys and flashings renewed, chimneys repointed and lead redressed, all fixed for Warlingham's exposed position rather than the sheltered conditions of a town roof.
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 Warlingham.
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 Warlingham
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
Warlingham Green
The triangular, tree-lined green in the middle of the village, ringed by the war memorial, shops and cafes. It hosts the Remembrance parade, the crowning of the May Queen and the Christmas lights switch-on.
View on Google Maps - Warlingham Green
All Saints Church
Warlingham's flint parish church, founded around 1250 and restored by George Gilbert Scott in 1857. Inside is a 16th-century wall painting of St Christopher, and local tradition links the church to Archbishop Cranmer's first Book of Common Prayer.
View on Google Maps - All Saints Church
Blanchman's Farm Local Nature Reserve
A 23-acre nature reserve owned by Tandridge District Council, a few hundred metres east of the Green on Limpsfield Road. Woodland, two meadows, a pond and a community orchard, with a nature trail that suits wheelchairs and pushchairs.
View on Google Maps - Blanchman's Farm Local Nature ReserveWhere Warlingham sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: about 14 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 Warlingham
Repairs in Warlingham often cost more than on a terrace in town, and the postcode has nothing to do with it. Big roofs with lots of valleys and dormers take longer to inspect and often need more scaffold. Chimney work on a tall stack needs proper access. Cottage repairs can call for reclaimed tiles or lime mortar. On exposed sites the weather can also push work back a day or two, which we allow for in the plan, not the price.
Read the cost guideWarlingham roof repair questions
Who handles planning for roof work in Warlingham?
Tandridge District Council in Surrey, not Croydon, even with a CR6 postcode. Warlingham is a parished area, so Warlingham Parish Council is also consulted on planning applications. Like-for-like repairs need no permission. Changing the materials or roof shape, or adding dormers, may, and Tandridge's Warlingham Village Design Statement sets out what is expected to fit local character. Near Whyteleafe, confirm your council before applying: that village is Tandridge too, but a few of its streets are in the London Borough of Croydon.
Why does my Warlingham roof only leak when it's windy?
The wind is pushing rain sideways and uphill, under tile laps and into joints that stay dry in ordinary rain. On exposed ground like this it's common. It usually points to a valley, a flashing, a dormer cheek or tiles that were never nailed or clipped. Make a note of which way the wind was blowing when it leaked. That alone narrows the search down a lot.
Do you cover Hamsey Green, Chelsham and Farleigh as well?
Yes. We work across the whole Warlingham area, including Hamsey Green, Chelsham and Farleigh, and down into Whyteleafe. From our base in South Croydon it's about a quarter of an hour. The bigger, more exposed houses out towards Chelsham and Farleigh take the worst of the wind, and on those we pay extra attention to the ridges and anything facing open ground.
Is a bigger roof always a bigger repair bill?
Not always, but finding the problem usually takes longer. A large roof with several hips, valleys and dormers has far more joints for water to get through, and the stain indoors can be some distance from the actual leak. Once it's found, the repair itself may be small. Access is the other factor, since tall or complicated roofs usually need scaffold rather than ladders.
Weather getting into your Warlingham home?
Call us before the next blow. We'll come up from South Croydon at no charge, look at the roof from ridge to gutter and from the loft side, and explain what is letting the rain in and what it will take to stop it.