Roofers in Sayers Common

1.1 Stack, flaunching and lead

A stack leaks in three places. The flaunching is the sloping mortar bed on top that seats the pots, and a crack in it sends rainwater straight into the flues below. The flashings are the lead bands where the stack meets the slope; if they lift, water tracks inside the roof and shows up as a brown stain on the wall of the chimney breast. The brickwork itself is the third, because open joints let rain in sideways. We look at all three from the loft and the ladder, and the repair follows what is wrong: repointing where the joints are the problem, a new flaunching where it has failed, fresh lead where the bands have pulled. Repointing a stack is slow, careful work.

1.2 Gables and verges

The gable wall rises to the roof edge, called the verge, and the tiles there are pinned and bedded to the wall. Brick walls of this kind are cut by the weather where the roof overhangs little, so we look for missing bedding, gaps at the top of the wall and tiles that have shifted. Repairs are fixed with clips or nails and bedded neatly, and we match the existing tile as far as we can. A stack and a gable are each a small job on their own. Done together under one scaffold, they spare you paying for access twice. Our chimney repairs page covers the wider range of stack work.

Brick ages differently depending on its firing and where it sits. Soft, older bricks lose their faces first, and a hard cement repoint over them can trap moisture and speed the flaking. So the mortar for repointing an older stack is chosen to be no harder than the brick it joins, and the old joints are raked out to a proper depth instead of being smeared over. Pots and cowls are checked at the same time, since a loose pot can let rain straight down a flue.

3.1 What a roof job needs on the highway

The licence fee for a month of scaffolding is £266 on the county's published schedule, and an extension costs £178. Unlicensed scaffolding is charged at £50 a day and a retrospective licence at £425, so it pays to do things in the right order. Deliveries matter too. Tiles and battens are best unloaded off the road, and where a house fronts the main road we plan the lift from the side or rear, so the hoist does not swing over passing traffic. Deciding that at survey saves time on site. Behind the scaffold is the work itself. Typical UK figures for scaffolding a standard two-storey house, as a reference point, run at about £850 to £1,200, according to MyBuilder, with a chimney alone at about £400 to £900, which is why we plan the roof job to need the access only for as long as is necessary.

3.2 While you wait for the licence

A licence wait does not mean a leaking roof stays leaking. We prioritise leaks, and where water is coming in we make the roof safe first, with a temporary cover or a local repair that needs no scaffold on the road side, then plan the full job. Gutters and fascias facing the road are the items most affected by access, and our gutters, soffits and fascias page explains what is involved. Photographs from the survey go with the written quote, so the road-side work is agreed before the scaffold goes up.