Roof repairs across Crewe — terraces, shared valleys and party walls included. Weekday emergency call-outs around the clock.
Crewe was built for the railway, and it was built in rows. Long terraces of workers’ housing went up in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and while the town has grown a great deal since, those terraces are still a large part of it.
Terraced roofs behave differently from detached ones in a way that catches people out regularly: your roof is not really your roof. It is a continuous slope that happens to have walls underneath it at intervals.
That single fact accounts for a surprising proportion of the difficult leaks we are called to in Crewe.
Water landing on a terrace roof does not know where your title deeds stop. It runs down the slope, and if it gets under the covering it runs along the battens too. A defect two houses along can put water into your bedroom, and it will keep doing it however many times somebody repairs the slope directly above your ceiling.
The party wall is the usual culprit. Where a party wall rises through the roof it is weathered with lead, and where it stops short of the surface the covering simply passes over it. Either detail can fail, and when it does the water arrives on whichever side of the wall the slope happens to fall.
The second is the shared valley or box gutter, which on some Crewe terraces runs behind a parapet at the front. It carries the water off several roofs, it is out of sight from the street, and it is the single most common cause of a long-running leak we are asked to solve after somebody else has had a go.
The third is access. Working on a mid-terrace roof often means getting to it over or past a neighbour’s property, and scaffolding a terrace is a different job from scaffolding a semi. That is not a reason not to do the work; it is a reason the quotation may look different from the one your friend with a detached house got, and we would rather explain that up front than have it look like an inflated price.
If we find the source is next door, we will tell you plainly, and we will put it in writing so you have something to show your neighbour. That conversation is easier with a roofer’s written assessment than without one. We cannot go onto a neighbour’s roof without their permission, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Most of the original Crewe terrace roofs were natural slate, and most have been partially reslated at least once. That produces roofs that are a patchwork of ages, where a slope may have thirty-year-old slates next to hundred-year-old ones.
The failure mode is almost always the nails. Slate itself lasts far longer than the iron or steel that held it up, so slates start slipping in ones and twos with nothing to blame it on. A slope that has had a dozen slates refixed over a decade is a slope telling you its fixings have gone generally.
A lot of Crewe terraces have also gained a rear extension with a flat or shallow lean-to roof at some point. The junction where that roof meets the main house wall is the other place we spend a lot of time.
On a terrace the repair-or-replace decision is rarely just yours, which is the awkward part. Reslating your section of a continuous slope is perfectly possible, and we do it, but the new work then abuts old work at each end and those junctions have to be detailed properly rather than simply butted up.
Where the whole run is at the same stage, neighbours co-ordinating the work is genuinely cheaper and produces a better roof, for the same access reasons as anywhere else. Where it is only your section that has gone, we will do your section and detail the joins so they are not the next problem.
On a terrace, storm damage is everybody’s problem and nobody’s. Wind gets the most leverage at the ridge and at the top course of slates, and a slate dislodged four doors down can put water into your roof space rather than theirs.
If slates have come off into the street, the priority is making the roof safe before anything else — a partly dislodged slate above a pavement is a hazard to people walking past, not only to the house.
Emergency call-outs run 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday, with Saturday and Sunday cover from 8:00 to 19:00.
Leaking roofs, slipped and broken tiles, damaged slates, storm damage, valleys, chimneys, leadwork, flat roofs, ridges and verges. The main roof repair page has the detail on each of them.
“I needed help removing a chimney.
Buddy discussed the options available to me, taking into account my budget, timeline and DIY ability.
We settled that his team would remove the chimney to the roofline, using scaffolding and ladders.
He gave a detailed description of the steps his team were going to take, how long it would take them, and provided a fair quote.
His team were pleasant and worked efficiently. They got the job done in the estimated time and I was happy with the end result.”
“The men were genuine and trustworthy. Turned up every time when they said they would, and phoned ahead. Very respectful and did an amazing job.,thank you x”
freda markham“Excellent work replacing ridge tiles, repointing chimney and repairing flashing. Also fixed other broken tiles. Clean and tidy job. Would definitely recommend.”
NeilWritten for Crewe rather than for roofs in general. The ones not yet published are listed rather than linked, because a link to a page that does not exist yet helps nobody.
Every town below has its own page, written around what the roofs there are actually like.
Describe what is happening and roughly where you are, and we will come back to you — usually the same day. If water is coming in now, please call instead.
Prefer to talk? Call 07464 259566 · WhatsApp 0044 7464 259566 · Email Evensbuddy@yahoo.com
We cover Crewe from our base at Elton, just north of Chester.
2 Manley View
Elton
Chester
CH2 4QF
Almost all of our work happens at your property rather than here, so please call before travelling.
Monday – Friday — 24hrs — Emergency Call-Outs
Saturday — 8:00 – 19:00
Sunday — 8:00 – 19:00
Weekday emergency call-outs are answered around the clock. Weekend cover is 8:00 to 19:00.