Chimney Repairs · West Wickham BR4
Chimney Repairs In West Wickham
Is the chimney on your West Wickham semi letting damp into the house?
Repointing, flaunching, flashings, back gutters and removals on interwar stacks in West Wickham and Coney Hall
On a lot of interwar semis in West Wickham the chimney stands on the line between your house and next door's, so half of it is yours and half is theirs. You see that pattern on the side streets around Station Road and Hayes Lane, along the rising ground towards Corkscrew Hill, and across the Coney Hall estate, which went up in the 1930s. Most of these stacks are now around ninety years old. Many sit on a slope that is shaded by mature trees for much of the day, so the brickwork and the lead stay damp, moss gathers in the back gutter behind the stack, and the water that should run off it starts to find its way in. The damp usually shows on a bedroom chimney breast, or in the loft right beside the stack.
Chimney Repairs quote in West Wickham
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
Who prices your chimney
Chimney quotes on a semi can get complicated once next door's half is involved. At Roof Repairs Croydon the figures are usually worked through by both owners, John and Mark, brothers who run the place as a family concern and always have done together.
In all that time there has been no falling-out, and they agree more often than not, so decisions about your stack come easily between them. You also get two people to contact, each up to speed on the job. If one is tied up, try the other, because both will know where things stand.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
Chimney faults we look for on West Wickham houses
Each of these can be spotted from the garden or the loft hatch. Here is what usually causes it.
A damp patch on the chimney breast upstairs
Water is getting into the stack and travelling down inside it. Look first at the flaunching round the pots and at the pointing, before blaming the flashing.
Moss packed behind the stack on the uphill side
The back gutter is blocked. On a shaded slope moss grows quickly there and holds water against the lead, which eventually overflows behind the flashing and into the roof.
Wet timbers in the loft beside the chimney
The stepped flashings down the sides of the stack have slipped, cracked or were never wedged properly. The damp tends to run down the side of the stack that gets least sun.
Brick faces crumbling on the shaded side
Brick that stays wet for long periods suffers more in frost. Hard cement pointing from an earlier repair can make this worse, because it stops the brick drying through the joints.
What to expect from us on a West Wickham chimney
Shared stacks handled properly
If your chimney is shared with next door, we tell you what you can do on your own side and what needs your neighbour's agreement or a Party Wall notice.
Back gutter cleared and checked
We clear the moss and debris behind the stack, then check whether the lead underneath has corroded or split before deciding what it needs.
Mortar chosen to suit the brick
Interwar brick needs a mix that lets it dry out. We avoid sealing a damp stack in a hard cement that holds the water in.
Lead dressed in, not smeared over
New flashings are code 4 lead set into the joint and wedged. We do not rely on mastic or a mortar fillet.
Bromley, not Croydon, for any application
If you are removing or altering a stack, any question for the council goes to the London Borough of Bromley. We point you there from the start.
Ten year written guarantee
Our workmanship guarantee covers the chimney work, and we give it to you in writing at handover.
Shaded slopes, shared stacks and West Wickham chimneys
Chimneys dry out through sun and wind. In West Wickham the established trees lining the side roads, combined with ground that rises towards Kent, put plenty of north slopes in shade for much of the day. A stack on one of those slopes stays wet longer after every shower. Moss takes hold on the brickwork and in the back gutter, the lead stays damp, and frost has more water to work on. Over a few winters, that damp stack starts to fail in places a sunny one would not.
Then there is the way the houses were built. Interwar semis, including a great many on the Coney Hall estate, often have their stack on the party wall, shared with the house next door. That means repairs to one side affect the other, and any rebuild or removal brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. Many of these stacks have also been repointed at least once since the 1930s, and not always in a mortar that suits the brick. Part of a proper repair is finding out what earlier work has done and undoing it where it is causing damage.
"When we are asked to look at a West Wickham chimney, the back gutter behind the stack is very often full of moss, and that alone can explain the damp in the loft."
From chimney repairs enquiries in West Wickham handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
How a West Wickham chimney repair is carried out
Start with a photograph
A zoomed shot of the stack from the garden, plus a note of where the damp shows indoors, lets us see whether it looks like pointing, pots or lead.
Free survey, outside and in
We look at the pointing, flaunching, pots, flashings and back gutter, then check the loft for wet timber or staining around the stack.
Shared stack? We say so
If the chimney is on the party wall, we explain which work you can do on your side and which needs your neighbour involved.
Itemised written quote
Access, repointing, flaunching, lead and back gutter are listed separately, so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
The repair itself
Joints raked and repointed in a suitable mix, pots rebedded, the back gutter relined and new lead flashings dressed and wedged.
Photos and handover
We photograph the finished stack from the access so you can see the top, then hand over the ten year guarantee.
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
What a good West Wickham chimney quote should cover
The back gutter
On a shaded, mossy slope the lead behind the stack is a common failure. If a quote mentions only the side flashings and the front apron, ask about the back.
Who owns which half
On a semi, the quote should say whether the stack is shared and what that means for the work. Leaving it out can cause trouble with next door later.
The right council named
Any reference to planning or building control should be to the London Borough of Bromley. A quote that mentions Croydon has not been checked.
Repoint and reflash, or take it down?
Plenty of West Wickham stacks no longer serve a fire. Here is how keeping one compares with removing it, on a typical interwar semi.
| Comparison point | Repoint and reflash | Take it down |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Sound brick, tired joints | A stack you no longer use |
| Neighbour | Own side, no notice | Party Wall notice if shared |
| Inside | No work | Flue capped and ventilated |
| Roof | New lead dressed in | Tiled over to match |
| Upkeep after | Some, in future decades | None from the stack |
| Council | Not needed | Check with Bromley first |
Damp ceiling at the back?
If the stain is over a rear extension or a bay rather than near the chimney breast, the flat roof may be the cause instead. Our page on flat roof repairs in West Wickham explains what to look for, and we can check both on one visit.
What a chimney repair costs in West Wickham
Clearing a back gutter and refixing a flashing is a small job. Rebuilding the top of a shared stack is not. These factors decide where yours sits.
Shade and how long the stack has stayed wet
A stack on a north slope under the trees round Hayes Lane, Wickham Court or Corkscrew Hill has often been damp for years. The longer that has gone on, the more likely it is that bricks as well as joints need replacing.
Shared stacks on Coney Hall and Station Road semis
Where the stack is on the party wall, the work may need to be agreed with next door, and if both owners want it done, the access cost can be split.
Access
Most chimney work needs scaffold or a chimney platform, and on a stack this high it is often the biggest single item on the quote.
Chimney Repairs in West Wickham: questions
Does Bromley need to approve chimney removal in West Wickham?
Repairs and repointing need no permission. If you want to remove or alter a stack that can be seen from the street, check with the London Borough of Bromley first. The Croydon boundary is only a short walk away at Shirley, which confuses plenty of owners, but it is Bromley's planners and building control officers who deal with BR4. On a semi with a shared stack, rebuilding or removal also comes under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, so notice must be served on your neighbour before work starts.
Why is there moss behind my chimney, and does it matter?
The slope behind the stack is probably shaded, so it stays wet and moss grows there. It matters because it blocks the back gutter, the lead channel that carries water around the uphill side of the stack. Once that is blocked, water overflows behind the flashing. Clearing it is cheap. Leaving it can rot the timbers below.
Next door is not interested in our shared West Wickham stack. What can I do on my side?
Quite a lot. Repointing and new lead on your half are yours to organise, and you do not need their consent. Rebuilding or taking down the stack is structural work and needs a Party Wall notice. Many neighbours are happy to share the scaffold and do both halves at once, which costs each of you less.
Our stack was repointed a few years ago and it still lets in damp. Why?
Two common reasons. Either the flaunching at the top was left alone, so water is still getting in above the new pointing, or the joints were filled with a hard cement that holds water in the brick. A look from the access usually shows which.
Do you work on Coney Hall chimneys?
Yes. We cover Coney Hall and the rest of West Wickham, including Station Road, Hayes Lane, Wickham Court and Corkscrew Hill. It is about 15 minutes from us.
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 West Wickham
Three spots nearby worth a walk while the mortar cures.
West Wickham Common
Heath and woodland off Croydon Road with old banks and ditches ranging from prehistoric to Tudor. The Corporation of London bought it in 1892, and some of its oak pollards are at least six centuries old.
View on Google Maps - West Wickham Common
St John the Baptist Church
West Wickham's parish church, rebuilt by Sir Henry Heydon in Henry VII's reign. Wickham Court is nearby, and the chapel glass depicts the saints the Heydon children were named for.
View on Google Maps - St John the Baptist Church
Hayes Common
Roughly 225 acres of heath and woodland east of West Wickham. After locals objected to plans to build on it, it became, in 1869, the first common safeguarded by the Metropolitan Commons Act.
View on Google Maps - Hayes CommonWest Wickham on the map
We are roughly a quarter of an hour away in South Croydon. For anything involving planners or building control, West Wickham means Bromley, not Croydon.
Areas we cover
Besides West Wickham and Coney Hall, we repair chimneys in all the towns listed below.
Chimney Repairs by town
Chimney damp in West Wickham?
Send us a photo of the stack or ring us. We will come over free, check the stack, the lead and the back gutter, and give you a fixed written price.