Mildenhall Roofers carries out roof repairs for homeowners in Bury St Edmunds, handling every stage of the job from the first inspection through to the finished repair and clean-up.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
A lot of homeowners are unsure what to expect when a roofer comes out. How do they find the problem? What do they actually do on the roof? What should you be left with at the end? This page walks through a typical roof repair from start to finish, so you know exactly what a good job looks like and what questions to ask.
Before any work begins, the roof needs a proper inspection. For most domestic repairs, this means getting up to roof level and looking at the actual condition of the surface, the flashings, the ridge, the verges and any areas around chimney stacks, dormers or skylights. A ground-level look with binoculars can identify obvious problems such as missing tiles, but it will not show you failed pointing, cracked flashing or deteriorating felt beneath the surface.
A good survey should identify not just the obvious fault but the underlying cause. A slipped tile is easy to spot; what matters is whether it slipped because the nib snapped, because the fixing nail corroded, or because the batten beneath it has rotted. Each of those causes a different repair. If a roofer quotes from the pavement without going up, be cautious about how complete that diagnosis will be.
The survey should also flag any other areas of concern that are not yet failing but may need attention soon. This gives you the full picture and lets you decide whether to deal with everything at once or plan staged repairs.
Safe access to the roof is essential. For most two-storey properties, this means a ladder set at the correct angle and secured at the top. On larger or more complex roofs, scaffolding may be needed. Scaffolding adds cost but it also allows a roofer to work properly across the whole roof, rather than being limited to what is reachable from a single ladder position.
Crawl boards (long padded boards that spread a person's weight across the roof surface) should be used on tile and slate roofs to avoid cracking tiles or stressing the battens. If you see a roofer walking directly on tiles without boards, it is worth questioning - particularly on older or clay tile roofs where individual tiles are more brittle.
For work at a chimney or on a parapet, additional safety measures may be needed. A roofer working safely takes a little longer, but that is the right trade-off.
Once on the roof, the damaged area is carefully stripped back to expose the problem fully. On a tile or slate roof this means lifting the surrounding tiles or slates to expose the battens, felt and any damaged fixings. On a flat roof repair, it means cutting back the felt to a sound edge rather than simply patching over the top of failing material.
This step often reveals more than the original symptom suggested. Failed felt beneath tiles is not visible until the tiles come up. Rotten battens are only found once the tiles are off. A chimney flashing that looked intact from outside may be dressed into crumbling mortar joints that need raking out before re-pointing. This is why a fair-minded roofer will describe what they found during the strip-back, rather than just proceeding without telling you.
Stripping back properly is not cutting corners in reverse - it is the difference between a repair that lasts and one that fails again in a year.
The specific repair depends on what has been found. Common repairs on pitched roofs in this area include:
On a slate roof, replacing individual slates uses a tool called a slate ripper to cut the old fixing nail, then a new fixing strip (a thin strip of lead or copper) is used to hold the replacement slate in position without nailing through the face. This is standard practice for slate repairs.
For chimney work, any re-pointing should use a mortar mix appropriate to the age of the brickwork. Hard cement mortar on older soft brick can cause the brick face to spall over time. Lime-based mortars are usually more appropriate on pre-war chimney stacks.
Once the main repair is done, the surrounding roof area should be checked before coming down. This includes pressing on adjacent tiles to check they are firmly seated, checking that any flashings at the edges of the repair area are still well dressed and that no debris has lodged in gutters or valleys during the work.
On a flat roof, the fall of water away from the repaired area should be checked to make sure there is no new ponding risk created by how the patch sits. Even a small lip in a felt patch can hold water and accelerate further failure.
A straightforward part of the job, but an important one. Broken tile fragments, old mortar, offcuts of lead and any packaging should be cleared from the roof, gutters and the ground below. Old lead offcuts have scrap value and a good roofer will take them away - lead left on the ground is a hazard and represents a material that has real monetary worth.
Gutters should be checked and cleared if debris has fallen in during the repair. Water running over a blocked gutter caused by a roofing job is an avoidable nuisance.
Before leaving, a roofer should be able to tell you clearly what was repaired, what caused the problem and whether there are any other areas to keep an eye on. If further work was found during the survey that was not part of the original job, you should be told about it so you can plan ahead.
Roofs need periodic maintenance. Checking the condition of mortar, flashings and tiles after periods of severe weather, clearing moss before it becomes established, and keeping gutters clear all extend the life of the roof and prevent small problems from developing into large ones.
We handle repairs to all types of domestic roof in Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area, including pitched tile and slate roofs, flat felt and EPDM rubber roofs, lead flashing repairs, chimney repairs, ridge tile re-bedding, verge repairs and storm damage. We also cover properties in Mildenhall, Barton Mills, Cavenham, Lackford, Culford and neighbouring villages.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
