What Counts as Emergency Roof Damage?

Tier One: Now

These justify an out-of-hours call, and they are shorter a list than people expect.

Anything loose above where people go. A dislodged chimney pot, a hanging ridge or hip tile, a section of lead or a sheet flapping over a path, a drive, a doorway or a pavement. This is a falling-object risk and it is the only category where the water is beside the point.

Water at or near electrics. A light fitting dripping, water near a consumer unit, water running down a wall with sockets on it. Turn the circuit off and call.

A ceiling bulging or sagging with trapped water. It can come down without warning.

An actual hole. Something has come through, or a section of covering has gone and you can see daylight from inside.

Water coming in at a rate you cannot contain. Not a drip into a bucket - a flow.

Tier Two: This Week

An active leak you can contain. A drip into a bucket during rain. Not an emergency, and not something to leave either - the plaster, insulation and timber damage while you wait usually costs more than the roofing.

Two or more missing tiles, particularly clustered. A tiled roof is partly self-supporting, so once one has gone its neighbours have a free edge for the wind. Clusters spread.

A visibly lifted flashing or a section of ridge that has moved but is not over a path.

Mortar on the ground below a gable or a chimney. Bedding is letting go above.

A blocked or overflowing gutter in autumn. Cheap now, expensive after a winter of water running down a wall.

Tier Three: Book It

One missing tile, nothing showing inside. The felt underneath is holding for now. Weeks rather than months, and before the next windy spell, but not a crisis.

A cracked tile still in place. Before the first hard frost is the deadline that matters.

Old dry stains on a ceiling. A sharp-edged brown mark with no damp in it is historic. Worth establishing whether it is genuinely dealt with; not this week's problem.

Moss, and weathered-looking tiles. Worth dealing with when something else is being done. Not a reason for a call-out and not a reason for a new roof.

A ridge line that has always had a gentle sag. Frequently historic and stable.

The Warrington Question: Who Should Be Paying?

A great deal of housing here is modern, and on a modern house the answer to "who fixes this" is not automatically "a roofer you choose".

Structural warranty cover on new housing typically runs for ten years, with the first two normally being the builder's own responsibility to put right. If your house is inside that period, establishing what has failed is worth doing before you instruct anybody to repair it, because instructing your own contractor can complicate a claim.

The faults we most often find on newer Warrington roofs are exactly the ones a warranty conversation covers: dry verge units that were never properly clipped, ridge sections bedded rather than mechanically fixed, missing soakers behind a chimney flashing, and roof windows whose flashing kits were rushed.

We will come out and tell you what is wrong whether or not somebody else is paying. Knowing precisely what has failed is what makes any warranty conversation go anywhere at all.

If it is a genuine tier-one emergency, that comes first and the paperwork follows. Nobody should be sitting under a hole while a claim is discussed.

And If You Are Not Sure

Ring and describe it. We would rather talk somebody out of a call-out they do not need than have them sit under a bulging ceiling because they did not want to make a fuss.

The four things worth having ready: where the water is showing, what the weather was doing, anything visible from the ground, and whether anything is loose above a path or a doorway.