Roofers in West Dean

1.1 Where a brick shaft leaves the roof

A cottage chimney is wrapped in lead at its base: an apron across the lower face, stepped pieces up the sides, and a back gutter behind the stack so water runs round it rather than pooling. Small lead soakers are threaded between tiles or slates alongside. Each piece is set into a chase raked out of the brickwork, so the quality of the mortar around the chase matters as much as the metal. Old chimney shafts also lose mortar from the top down, and a cracked crown lets rain into the flue. We look at both ends of the stack and every join between.

1.2 Choosing the lead

Leadworx lists code 3 as soaker lead only, and names code 4, at 1.80 mm, as its everyday flashing weight, with codes 5 and 6 kept for heavier-duty positions. Checkatrade's typical UK prices for lead flashing, before VAT, are £50 to £70 per metre for code 5 and £80 to £120 per metre for stepped flashing (updated October 2026). Chimney scaffold typically costs £400 to £900, MyBuilder says (updated 21/08/2026), which is why we try to deal with stack and lead in one visit. Our lead roofing page explains codes and dressing in detail, and our chimney repairs page covers the stack above it.

1.3 Around the thatch

Where a chimney rises through a thatched roof, the seam between brick and thatch is the weak point, and any work there is planned alongside whoever maintains the thatch itself. Where thatch is involved, the flue guidance in Approved Document J calls for extra clearance, so a new stove in a thatched cottage needs its chimney height checked first. We survey the shaft, the flaunching and the lead from the ground and the loft, and send photographs so that you can see the fault before we price it.

3.1 Pitch, fixing and reuse

Cupa Pizarras reads BS 5534 as setting a floor of 20 degrees for natural slate under moderate exposure, with a 500 mm slate and a 115 mm headlap, and advises against hook fixings on any pitch below 25 degrees. Headlap is how far each slate covers the course two rows beneath it, and it shrinks as the pitch steepens, from 115 mm at 20 degrees to 50 mm at 85 degrees on a 500 by 300 slate. Our survey measures the pitch before we propose anything. Where slates are sound but the nails have failed, they can be stripped, sorted and re-laid on new battens and underlay, topped up with matching replacements. When the slates themselves are the problem, our slate roofing page sets out the options.

3.2 Building Regulations, VAT and cost

A re-roof that stays inside the Planning Portal's limits, under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof touched, does not normally call for a building control application; beyond them, or with a heavier covering, it does. Slate is light compared with stone but heavier than some tiles, so weight is worth a check, and so is any thermal upgrade a larger job may trigger. VAT on this work is charged at 20 per cent. A larger job also needs scaffold, and where it stands over a public road or pavement it needs a Highways Act licence from West Sussex County Council, which the scaffold firm applies for, with 10 working days' notice. The figures below are national, typical and independent of our own prices.