Norbury · SW16
Roof Repairs In Norbury
Got an SW16 address and a roof problem in Norbury?
Repairs for original slate and clay main roofs and the younger flat roofs behind them
Norbury roofs come in two halves. On the main slope of most Edwardian and interwar houses here, between London Road and Pollards Hill, you will still find the original slate or clay tile, which has done a century of work and is now losing nails and nibs. Behind it sits a flat roof over the back addition that may be twenty years old or two. They fail for different reasons and need a different repair, so we check both. North-facing slopes near London Road also hold the traffic grime that builds up along the A23, and that film keeps the covering damp long after the rain has stopped.
Free roof survey in Norbury
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
Norbury and a family-run roofing firm
Norbury has an SW16 postcode but falls under Croydon, and so does the family firm that covers it. Roof Repairs Croydon is run by brothers John and Mark.
With an older main slope and a newer flat roof at the back on many Norbury houses, there can be a fair bit to talk through. Both brothers will know your job, because quoting, running jobs and managing the team are things they do together.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
Norbury, the Croydon address that looks like Streatham
Norbury was fields and the old Norbury Manor estate until the electric trams came down the London Road in 1901. Building followed fast. Between 1901 and about 1920 the London County Council put up the Norbury Estate, its first cottage estate outside its own boundary, using bricks fired from clay dug on the site. Private builders filled in the roads around it before and after the First World War, then the interwar semis went up towards Pollards Hill and Norbury Park. The postcode is SW16, which Norbury shares with Streatham in Lambeth, and that sends a lot of people to the wrong council.
That building history explains what we find on the roofs. The front slopes are mostly original: Welsh slate on the earlier terraces, clay plain tile on a lot of the Edwardian and interwar houses. Slate fails at the nail, so slates slide out one at a time. Old clay tile fails at the nib and starts to delaminate in frost. At the back, most houses had their rear roof replaced at some point with felt, and more recently rubber or fibreglass. Those newer roofs fail at their edges and where they meet the wall, far more often than in the middle.
Roof repairs Norbury asks for most
Roof Replacement
When a hundred-year-old slate or clay slope is shedding pieces every winter, repairs stop being good value. We will tell you honestly when Norbury roofs reach that point.
Read more about roof replacement in NorburyFlat Roof Repairs
The rear flat roofs here are newer than the house, and usually fail at the trims, the outlet or the joint with the main wall. That is where we look first.
Read more about flat roof repairs in NorburyChimney Repairs
Tall Edwardian stacks with worn pointing and tired flashings let water in beside the chimney breast. We repoint, reflash or reduce, depending on what the stack needs.
Read more about chimney repairs in NorburyThose three come up most on Norbury roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
What a proper roof repair in Norbury should give you
Old main roof, newer back roof, and a postcode that confuses everyone. Here is what we do differently because of that.
Both roofs looked at
A stain on the back bedroom ceiling could be coming from either the old main slope or the newer flat roof next to it. We check both before we name the cause, so you pay to fix the right one.
Matching old slate and tile
We match Norbury slates and clay tiles with good reclaimed stock where we can, so a repair on a front slope does not stand out from the pavement as a patch of brand-new colour.
Grime cleared where it matters
On slopes facing the main road, a dirty film builds up in valleys and at the laps. We clear it from the places it holds water, without pressure washing old tiles, which damages them.
The right council, first time
If your job needs an application, we point you to Croydon, not Lambeth. That alone saves weeks for SW16 households who apply in the wrong place.
Straight talk on repair or replace
If the front slope has a few loose slates, it gets repaired. If the nails have failed across the whole slope, we explain why patching it will cost more over five years than redoing it.
"A good few of the Norbury roofs we survey turn out to have a perfectly sound flat roof at the back, and the water is coming off the century-old main slope beside it."
Based on Norbury jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in Norbury, step by step
Ring, or send a photo
A picture from the pavement or the back garden is often enough to tell whether this is a today job or one that can sensibly wait until next week.
The free visit
On Norbury houses we lift a few slates or tiles to check the nails and battens, inspect the chimney flashing, and walk the rear flat roof edges, outlet and wall joint. Photos of both roofs come with the report.
What failed, and what let it
Before any figure is mentioned you hear what has gone wrong and the reason it went, with photographs from the roof and from the loft side.
A fixed price on paper
Each item on its own line. Scaffold or a tower, if one is needed at all, sits separately so you can hold it up against anyone else's quote.
The repair itself
For most Norbury repairs that means refixing slipped slates with tingles or replacing cracked clay tiles from matched reclaimed stock, then renewing flat roof edge trims or the wall upstand where water has been tracking.
Signed off
Photographs of the finished work, gutters cleared of anything the job dropped into them, and the 10 year guarantee in writing before anyone leaves Norbury.
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 to do in Norbury
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
Norwood Grove
A sloping park on the Streatham Common side of Norbury, saved from building by local campaigners and opened in 1926 by the Prince of Wales. The white Victorian house at the top and the park are both Grade II listed, and the view north from the formal gardens is worth the climb.
View on Google Maps - Norwood Grove
Pollards Hill
The highest point in Norbury, given to the public in 1913 by Sir Frederick Edridge, a former mayor of Croydon. On a clear day the views run across to central Croydon and the Epsom Downs, and there is a Victorian drinking fountain marking the gift.
View on Google Maps - Pollards Hill
Norbury Park
Croydon bought this land in the 1930s from what had been a golf course, and it is now the biggest open space on the Norbury side of the borough. The Norbury Brook runs through it, with sports pitches, a playground and plenty of space for a walk.
View on Google Maps - Norbury ParkWhere Norbury sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: about 18 minutes. Planning and building control here sit with London Borough of Croydon.
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.
Other towns we cover, and what we do there
The same services and the same guarantee apply across every town below, from the Norbury end of the borough down to Caterham.
Roof repair costs in Norbury
The biggest cost question on a Norbury house is whether the main slope is still worth repairing. A few slipped slates or cracked clay tiles is a short visit. Nail failure across the slope is a different conversation. Rear flat roofs vary just as much: a failed trim or outlet is small, a split deck is not. And a tall Edwardian stack is rarely a ladder job, so if the chimney is involved, expect access to be part of the price.
Read the cost guideNorbury roof repair questions
My address is SW16. Is Norbury in Lambeth or Croydon for planning?
Croydon. The SW16 postcode covers Streatham, which is in Lambeth, and Norbury, which is in the London Borough of Croydon, so people regularly apply to the wrong council. Replacing old with matching new needs no application. If you live on the Norbury Estate, the old London County Council cottage estate, you are in a conservation area designated by Croydon in 2008, so changing the roof covering, adding rooflights or altering the roofline there needs checking with Croydon before you start.
Can old clay tiles on a Norbury roof be repaired, or does it need replacing?
Usually they can be repaired, at least for a while. Individual broken or slipped tiles can be swapped for matched reclaimed ones. The question is whether the nibs and nails are failing across the whole slope. If tiles are slipping in several places every winter, or flaking in frost, repairs will keep coming back. We show you photos of the tiles and battens so you can judge it yourself.
Why are the north-facing slopes near London Road always green and dirty?
Traffic grime along the A23 leaves an oily film on roofs nearby. It holds moisture, and on a slope that gets little sun, moss and lichen take hold in it. That keeps the laps and valleys wet for longer, which speeds up wear on old slate and tile. Clearing the valleys and gutters by hand helps a lot. A jet wash on century-old tile is a quick way to make it worse.
My flat roof at the back is only a few years old. Why is it leaking?
New flat roofs on Norbury back additions mostly leak at the details, not the main sheet. Look at the trims along the edge, the outlet into the gutter, and the upstand where the flat roof meets the house wall. If any of those were rushed or never sealed properly, water gets in there. Sometimes the leak is actually coming off the old main slope above and running down onto the flat roof.
Book a look at both your Norbury roofs
One visit covers both: the old main slope and the newer roof at the back. We go up, take photos of each, and show you which one is letting the water in. Phone us, or use the form at the top of the page.