Chimney Repairs · Thornton Heath CR7
Chimney Repairs In Thornton Heath
Is your half of a shared Thornton Heath stack, or theirs, putting damp in your walls?
Repointing, flaunching, lead flashings and rebuilds for party stacks and back addition chimneys on CR7 terraces
Walk down Parchmore Road or Beulah Road and look at the roofline. The chimneys on these Victorian and Edwardian terraces almost all sit on the party wall, one stack serving two houses, with a row of pots across the top and slate falling away on each side. Many houses have a second, smaller stack on the rear addition as well. That is a lot of brickwork standing out in the weather, and most of it has been repaired at some point with whatever mortar was in the van. Hard cement on soft London stock brick is the usual mess we find. When damp turns up on a chimney breast off Brigstock Road or Grange Road, the question is which part of the stack let it in, and whose side it is on.
Chimney Repairs quote in Thornton Heath
Four details and somebody will come and look at it. There is no charge for the visit, no obligation afterwards, and if the answer is that your roof is fine, that is what you will be told.
The people behind it
A shared stack, and two people who share the work
A chimney on a party wall belongs to two households, so it helps when the firm doing it is run by two people as well. John and Mark are the brothers behind Roof Repairs Croydon. Quoting, running the work and looking after the team are all things they handle jointly.
Because they trust each other, decisions about your stack happen quickly and without fuss. Their own view, offered with a smile, is that the arrangement makes them twice the roofers a normal firm would be. Customers more often just tell them it was a refreshing way to get a job done.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
How a Thornton Heath chimney tells you it is failing
Most of these can be seen from the street with a phone camera zoomed in. Here is what each one tends to mean on a terrace stack.
Grey cement pointing with crumbling brick around it
Someone repointed in a hard mix. The mortar now holds firm while the softer brick takes all the water and frost, and its faces break away.
Damp on the breast in the back bedroom
Often the small stack on the rear addition rather than the main one. Its flaunching is cracked or its pots are open to the rain, and nobody has looked at it in years.
Staining on both sides of the party wall
Water is getting into the shared stack and spreading down through the wall. It may enter on next door's half and show on yours, or the other way round.
A dark line along the slates beside the stack
The lead flashing has lifted, or it was replaced at some point with a mortar fillet that has cracked. Rain running off the slope tracks in underneath.
Our approach to chimneys on CR7 terraces
Both stacks checked
If you call about the front chimney, we still look at the one on the rear addition. It is cheap to check while the ladder is up and it is often the real culprit.
Lime where the brick wants it
Soft stock brick should always be the hardest thing in the wall, never the mortar. Failed cement gets raked out where that can be done without chipping the brick edges, then the joints are refilled in a mix that lets the stack dry.
Party stacks handled properly
We tell you which work only touches your half and which needs your neighbour involved. If notice is needed under the Party Wall Act, you know before the scaffold is booked.
Real lead, dressed and wedged
Code 4 lead flashings and a back gutter where the stack needs one, chased into the joints. No mortar fillets, no tubes of sealant.
Unused flues capped
Plenty of these fireplaces are no longer used. A vented cap keeps the rain out of a dead flue and lets it breathe, which stops the breast sweating.
Ten year workmanship guarantee
In writing, handed over with photographs of every face of the finished stack.
What terrace life does to a Thornton Heath stack
The terraces here were built quickly in the decades after the station opened, and the chimneys were built to the same budget. Slim stacks of soft brick, rendered or bare, sitting on a party wall with several flues inside them. A century of coal smoke, then decades of nobody lighting a fire at all. A cold stack never dries from the inside, so every bit of rain that gets in stays in.
Shared ownership makes it worse. One house repoints its half, the other does not, and the water simply moves to the weaker side. Parapet walls between houses carry rain down to the roof line as well, and on low ground like this, where gutters back up in a storm, the joint where stack, parapet and slate meet takes a soaking. Most of the damp we trace on these roofs starts at a junction, not in the middle of a brick face.
"On Thornton Heath terraces, the chimney damp people ring us about is quite often coming from the small back stack they had forgotten was there."
From chimney repairs enquiries in Thornton Heath handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
How a chimney repair in Thornton Heath runs
Zoomed photo from the pavement
Stand across the road and zoom in on the stack. That one picture shows us the pointing, the pots and whether there is lead or mortar at the base.
We go up, then into the loft
We look at every face we can reach, the flaunching and pots, the flashings and the back gutter, and finish in the loft, where the stack passes through and any wet timber shows.
Which half is the problem on?
On a party stack, we note which half the repair touches. If your neighbour needs a Party Wall notice, we say so now rather than on the morning.
Itemised fixed price
Scaffold or tower, raking out, repointing, replacement bricks, flaunching, lead and caps, each on its own line. If the back stack needs work too, it is priced separately.
The repair
We take out the cement pointing and refill the joints in a suitable mix. Frost-blown bricks are swapped for matching ones, the pots go back on a new bed of flaunching, and fresh lead is dressed into the slate.
Photos and handover
We photograph each face of the stack before the access comes down. Those pictures come to you with the ten year guarantee, in writing.
The 10 year guarantee, and why it is safe to offer
Promising a roof will stay dry is easy. What counts is what happens if it does not. Work booked through Roof Repairs Croydon carries a 10 year workmanship guarantee, on paper, handed to you on the day and written in language you can actually read. The slates, tiles, lead, mortar, membranes and rainwater goods carry their own manufacturer cover on top of that. It varies by product, so you get told which cover applies to your job rather than one headline number that would be wrong on most of them.
Here is the reason a guarantee like that is not a risk. Repairs come back for one reason above all others: the fault was never found in the first place. Somebody went up, saw a stain on the ceiling below, mended whatever looked worst directly above it, and left. Water does not cooperate with that approach. It lands on a slate, runs under it, drops onto a rafter and travels along the rafter before it finds anywhere to fall. On a wide hipped roof in Sanderstead or Shirley that can be five metres from where it came in.
Find the entry point and the repair holds for years. Miss it and no amount of guarantee wording helps anybody. That is why the survey happens before the price, and it is why, if the same water finds its way back into your house inside the guarantee period, putting it right costs you nothing.
10 year
Workmanship guarantee
1,000+
Roofs put right
Covered
Public liability insurance
Per product
Maker's own warranty
Before you accept a chimney quote in Thornton Heath
Can they take out the old cement?
Pointing fresh mortar over hard cement, or next to it, leaves the stack wet. Ask whether the old pointing is coming out and how they will do it without chewing the brick edges.
Have they thought about next door?
A quote for a shared stack that never mentions your neighbour is incomplete. Ask which work affects their half and whether any notice is needed.
What about the rear addition stack?
If they only looked at the front, ask them to check the back one too. It is the stack that gets missed most often on these streets.
Keep a dead stack going, or get rid of it?
A lot of Thornton Heath stacks serve nothing now. Some are worth repairing. Some are better reduced or removed. This is how the two compare.
| Comparison point | Repoint and reflash | Reduce or remove |
|---|---|---|
| Suits | Sound brick, tired joints and lead | A redundant stack in poor order |
| Neighbour involved | Only if their half is touched | Almost always on a party stack |
| Roof work | Flashings only | Slate made good where the stack was |
| Inside the house | Nothing | Flue capped, breast may need support |
| Paperwork | None | Party Wall notice, maybe building regs |
| Upkeep after | Repoint again in decades | None at that spot |
Or is it the flat roof below?
When the stain is at the back of the house, the stack and the felt roof over the rear addition are both suspects, and they sit right next to each other. Our page on flat roof repairs in Thornton Heath covers the other half of that problem.
What a chimney repair in Thornton Heath costs
Access is normally the largest single line on a chimney price. After that it depends on how much bad pointing there is and whether the stack is shared.
Getting up to the stack
A front stack on Grange Road or Beulah Road may need scaffold on the pavement, which can mean a council licence. A rear addition stack reached from a back garden is often cheaper to get to.
Cement repairs from years past
Terraces around Parchmore Road and near Thornton Heath Pond often carry hard cement pointing on soft brick. Raking it out by hand takes time, and some of the bricks behind it may need replacing.
Shared stacks and parapets
Where a party stack runs into a parapet, the flashing work is more involved, and a Party Wall notice can add a short wait before work starts.
Chimney Repairs in Thornton Heath: questions
Is planning permission needed to lower or remove a chimney in Thornton Heath?
A repair that leaves the stack looking as it did needs no application. Taking a visible stack down or lowering it is often allowed without one, but ask the London Borough of Croydon before you commit, and look up whether your street is in one of its conservation areas. Most stacks here sit on the party wall, so expect the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 to require written notice to your neighbour. Taking the breast out indoors is a building regulations job. The Article 4 direction Croydon applies to small HMO conversions is irrelevant to a chimney repair, unless that repair is part of converting the house.
Why do chimneys on Thornton Heath terraces get so damp?
Most are slim stacks of soft brick on a shared party wall, many have been repointed in hard cement, and many are no longer lit. Cement traps water in the brick, and a cold flue never dries out. On low ground where gutters back up in heavy rain, the joints at the base of the stack also get more water than they should.
My neighbour will not repair their half of the stack. What can I do?
Repointing and repairing the half that is yours does not need their say-so. If the problem is clearly on their half and it is damaging your house, a written report with photos is the best start for a conversation. Structural work on the whole stack needs Party Wall procedures followed, and we can explain what those involve.
Is the chimney on my rear addition worth keeping?
If it carries no flue you use and it is in poor order, taking it down to below the roof line and making the roof good is often sensible. If it is sound, a repoint and a vented cap will keep it dry for a long time. We price both so you can compare.
Can you fix a leaking flashing without scaffold?
Sometimes. On a rear addition stack we can often work from a ladder or a small tower. On a front stack two storeys up, safe access usually means scaffold. We decide on the survey and put the access cost on the quote.
What Croydon homeowners say
From roads across the borough, once the ladders had gone.
"Damp patch on our landing ceiling for about three years. Two roofers had been out and both mended the tiles directly above it, and neither made the slightest difference. This chap spent twenty minutes in the loft with a torch before he even went outside, then showed me a photo of a split in the lead in the valley about four metres away from the stain. Fixed it in a morning. Three winters on and nothing."
"Water was coming down the front bedroom wall every time it rained hard and I had convinced myself the roof was finished. It was the gutter. Half of it had dropped so the water was sitting in the middle and going over the front rather than down the pipe. He reset the brackets and cleared the gully, charged me a fraction of what I had budgeted for, and told me the roof itself had years left. Could easily have sold me a new one."
"Ours is in the Chatsworth Road conservation area and I had no idea the rules on roof work here are stricter than the rest of Croydon. He knew straight away, explained what I could and could not do without an application, and did the repair in matching slate. That saved me a very awkward conversation with the council later on."
"Lost most of the ridge tiles along the back in a February gale. Rang in the morning, sheeted the same afternoon so the weather could not get in, came back the following week when it was dry and rebedded the whole ridge properly. Sent me photos of everything for the insurance without me even asking. The bill was exactly what the quote said it would be."
"Gutters had been overflowing under the trees for years and the fascia behind them had gone soft. What I appreciated was that he explained why the timber had rotted rather than just quoting to replace it, and pointed out the new soffits needed vents or I would end up with condensation in the loft instead. Nobody had ever mentioned that to me before."
Had us out to your roof?
Two minutes writing a review does more for a small local firm than any amount of advertising, and it helps the next person in Croydon work out who to ring.
Things to do in Thornton Heath
With the scaffold gone, here are three spots in Thornton Heath worth a look.
Thornton Heath Clock Tower
Thornton Heath's stone clock tower was built in 1900 to mark the new century, partly funded by public subscription. Recent restoration gave it a new copper roof.
View on Google Maps - Thornton Heath Clock Tower
Thornton Heath Library
The Carnegie library on Brigstock Road opened in 1914 and is on Croydon's local list. A glazed pavilion and reading room now sit across its front.
View on Google Maps - Thornton Heath Library
Selhurst Park
Crystal Palace have played at Selhurst Park since it opened in 1924. Walk via Whitehorse Lane from Thornton Heath station and you are there in about fifteen minutes.
View on Google Maps - Selhurst ParkThornton Heath on the map
Our South Croydon base is roughly a 15 minute drive away. For anything to do with planning or building control on a Thornton Heath stack, the council is Croydon.
Areas we cover
Party stacks and cement-pointed brick are common across the older parts of the borough. Here is the full list of towns we cover.
Chimney Repairs by town
Damp beside a chimney breast in Thornton Heath?
Send a zoomed photo of the stack from across the street, front and back if you can. The survey costs nothing, you find out whose half is at fault, and the price comes fixed and in writing.