Selsdon · CR2
Roof Repairs In Selsdon
Gutters overflowing in Selsdon before November is even out?
Gutter, pitched and flat roof repairs for Selsdon's 1920s semis and the later Forestdale houses
In Selsdon the trees decide most of what goes wrong. Selsdon Wood, Littleheath Woods and the old garden trees along Selsdon Park Road and Farley Road drop a lot of leaf into a lot of gutters. Once a gutter blocks, water spills over the front and soaks the fascia, the brickwork and sometimes the wall cavity. Most of the houses are 1920s and 1930s semis with pitched tiled roofs. Over in Forestdale, built between the late 1960s and the 1970s, you get a different roof altogether: flat and shallow pitches that hold standing water if an outlet clogs. Two kinds of roof, one cause.
Free roof survey in Selsdon
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
Selsdon, and the family behind the firm
Leaf litter off Selsdon Wood is the most common reason a gutter round here gives up by November. Whoever you ring about it, you're reaching a family firm: Roof Repairs Croydon belongs to brothers John and Mark, who run it side by side and have never fallen out over it.
A 1930s semi on the Selsdon Park roads or a shallow roof in Forestdale, they'd usually work out the price together. With two people who both know the job, whichever one you reach is enough.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
Selsdon: a 1920s garden village with a newer estate beside it
Until the mid-1920s Selsdon was barely a hamlet: a big house about to become a hotel, a farm and a handful of cottages. Then Richard Costain and Sons, a Liverpool builder, began the Selsdon Garden Village. The first families moved in during September 1925. The houses were aimed at buyers on a middle income, and many were built in the Art Deco style of the period. That gives Selsdon a fairly uniform roof stock: plain tile or early concrete tile, modest hips and gables, and a lot of original timberwork that has now been up for close to a century.
Campaigners saved Selsdon Wood and Littleheath Woods from that same building boom, so the estate still backs onto ancient woodland. Good for walks, hard on gutters. Forestdale came along much later, from the late 1960s into the 1970s, on ground between Selsdon, Addington and New Addington. Its houses mix flat roofs, over garages and extensions, with shallow pitches on the main roofs. Those need a different repair. A low pitch drains slowly, so blocked outlets and failed felt show up inside sooner than on a steeper tiled roof. Some have already been re-covered once or twice, so it pays to know what is actually up there before pricing it.
Roof repairs Selsdon asks for most
Guttering
Leaf and twig from the woods block outlets every autumn. We clear them, fix falls that have sagged and fit guards where the trees overhang.
Read more about guttering in SelsdonFlat Roof Repairs
Forestdale's garages, links and low roofs pond water when outlets clog. We repair felt, or overlay it with modern membrane when the old layer is finished.
Read more about flat roof repairs in SelsdonRoof Leak Repairs
A damp patch near the top of a wall in Selsdon is often an overflowing gutter, not a hole in the roof. We check both before quoting.
Read more about roof leak repairs in SelsdonThose three come up most on Selsdon roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
Roof care that suits Selsdon's trees and its two kinds of house
Selsdon has a short, fixed season for roof trouble. Leaves fall, gutters fill and the first heavy rain finds the weak spots. These are the checks that help most here.
Autumn timing
We suggest booking a gutter clear after the main leaf drop, usually around mid-November here. Clear it in October and the oaks will fill it again by December.
Guards where they help
Mesh or brush guards are worth it under overhanging oak and beech. Under open sky they just collect moss. We'll say which side of your house needs them.
Wet fascia found early
Years of overflow rot the timber behind the gutter. We probe the boards while we're up there, so you hear about soft wood before the brackets pull out.
Low pitches understood
Forestdale's shallow roofs don't behave like steep tile. We check laps, outlets and felt joints with extra care, because rain sits on a low pitch for longer before it drains away.
Moss off the north slopes
Shade from the woods keeps some slopes damp all year. We remove heavy moss by hand and clear the gutter it would have washed into.
"A fair share of Selsdon callers think they have a roof leak, and the cause turns out to be a gutter full of leaves spilling down the wall."
Based on Selsdon jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in Selsdon, 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
We start at the gutters and outlets, then look up at the tiles or felt. On Forestdale houses we check the flat sections for ponding and soft spots, and in the loft we look for damp at the wall plate.
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
Gutters cleared and realigned, failed joints remade, rotten fascia replaced, slipped tiles refixed, and on flat or low roofs patched felt or a full membrane overlay where the old covering has run its course.
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 Selsdon.
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 Selsdon
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
Selsdon Wood
About 200 acres of oak, beech, ash and sweet chestnut, saved from housing by local campaigners and opened in 1936. The National Trust owns it, Croydon Council looks after it.
View on Google Maps - Selsdon Wood
Littleheath Woods
Around 64 acres of woodland and grassland between Littleheath Road and Croham Valley Road. Residents saved it from development, and it opened to the public in 1932.
View on Google Maps - Littleheath Woods
Bramley Bank
A small nature reserve run by London Wildlife Trust on the Shirley side of Selsdon, entered from Riesco Drive. Woodland, acid grassland and a pond where all five native amphibians breed.
View on Google Maps - Bramley BankWhere Selsdon sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: about 7 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 Selsdon
In Selsdon the price usually comes down to what the overflowing water has already done. A gutter clear on its own is a small job. If years of overflow have rotted the fascia, it grows. If water has been running down the wall into the cavity, it grows again. On Forestdale's flat and low roofs, the deciding question is whether the existing felt can be patched or needs a full overlay. We test it and tell you.
Read the cost guideSelsdon roof repair questions
Do I need planning permission for roof repairs in Selsdon or Forestdale?
Selsdon and Forestdale are both the London Borough of Croydon for planning and building control. Repairing a roof with matching materials doesn't normally need an application. Replacing a whole roof covering, or a flat roof structure, may need building regulations approval, and we deal with that as part of the job. If you want to change the look of a Forestdale house, such as its roof shape or materials, ask the council's planning team about any local controls first.
How often should Selsdon gutters be cleared?
Once a year is enough for most houses here, after the leaves are down. If oak or beech hangs straight over your roof, twice may be wiser: once in late autumn and once in early spring for the seed and catkin debris. Houses on open roads away from the woods can often go longer.
My Forestdale garage roof has a puddle on it. Is that a problem?
A shallow puddle that dries within a day or two is normal on an older flat roof. Water that stays for days is a warning. It means the deck has sagged or the outlet is blocked, and standing water speeds up the breakdown of felt. Clear the outlet first. If the puddle still won't drain, the roof needs a look.
Are gutter guards worth fitting?
Under trees, usually yes. They keep the big leaves out, though fine debris still gets through, so they cut down on clearing rather than ending it. On a slope with no trees nearby they often just catch moss and do more harm than good. We fit them only on the runs that need them.
Book the Selsdon gutter clear for when the leaves are down
If water is spilling over the front of your gutter, or a Forestdale flat roof is holding a puddle that won't go, ring us or send a picture. We'll clear what's blocked, check what's behind it and give you a written price for anything else.