South Croydon · CR2
Roof Repairs In South Croydon
Is the slate on your South Croydon villa starting to let go?
Slate, lead and gutter repairs on the Victorian and Edwardian houses of CR2, from a team based here
We work out of Penwortham Road, so South Croydon is the patch we know best. The roofs that keep us busy are the Victorian villas on The Waldrons, Croham Road and the streets off Selsdon Road. Most of them are under natural slate that has been up for well over a century. The slate itself usually has life left in it. The nails holding it do not. Add the way the ground climbs south from the Brighton Road, which puts those tall frontages into more wind than you would guess from the pavement, and you get the job we do most here: slipped slates, tired valleys and gutters full of what came down off them.
Free roof survey in South Croydon
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
Brothers based in South Croydon
This is home ground. Roof Repairs Croydon is based in South Croydon and run by two brothers, John and Mark. It's a family business, and the pair have always worked together without falling out, which they're quietly proud of.
For a tall villa near Croham Road or a flat in a converted house off the Brighton Road, you'd have both of them across the details. Whichever brother you speak to, he'll 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
Old villas, newer flats, and a hill in between
A lot of South Croydon was built for people who wanted to live near the town but not in it. The Waldrons began life as part of the Haling Park Estate, laid out in the 1850s as a private road of classical villas. Croydon Council made it one of the borough's first conservation areas in 1973. The same pattern runs out along Croham Road: big detached and semi-detached houses under slate, deep gutters, moulded eaves and chimneys that were built to serve four or five fireplaces each. Those fireplaces are mostly long gone. The stacks, and the lead around them, are still up there taking the weather.
Closer to the Brighton Road the mix changes. You get Edwardian terraces, villas split into flats, and purpose-built blocks put up on the plots of houses that came down. That matters on the roof. A converted villa often has three or four owners sharing one slate covering, and nobody quite sure whose job the valley is. Up towards Croham Hurst the trees take over, and the north-facing slopes there stay damp for most of the winter. Moss grows, gutters fill and slate laps hold water. None of that causes a leak overnight, but it shortens the life of everything it touches.
Roof repairs South Croydon asks for most
Roof Leak Repairs
On a villa roof with valleys, hips and a parapet, the stain on the ceiling is rarely under the hole. We trace it first, often from inside the loft.
Read more about roof leak repairs in South CroydonChimney Repairs
Tall Victorian stacks with old lead flashings and crumbling flaunching. If water arrives on the chimney breast, this is where we look.
Read more about chimney repairs in South CroydonGuttering
Deep gutters behind moulded eaves and long downpipe runs. Leaf from the Croham Hurst side blocks them faster than owners expect.
Read more about guttering in South CroydonThose three come up most on South Croydon roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
Why it pays to use a roofer who lives on the same hill
Being based in CR2 isn't a sales line. It changes how quickly we can get to you and how much we already know about the roof before the ladder goes up.
Minutes away, not an hour
From Penwortham Road we can be on The Waldrons or Croham Road in a few minutes, so a slate on the path at nine in the morning can be looked at the same day.
We know slate
Most of the older roofs here are natural slate. We fix slipped slates with tingles or copper clips, and we can tell you when nail fatigue has gone too far for patching.
Conservation area sense
On The Waldrons we know what counts as like-for-like and what needs a conversation with the council first. You won't get a quote for a material that would cause trouble.
Flats with shared roofs
We are used to converted villas with several owners. Photos and a written note of the fault make it easier to split costs or talk to a managing agent.
Wind on the slope
The roads south of the town centre climb steadily. We check ridge and verge fixings on the exposed side as a matter of course, not just the slate you rang about.
"On the bigger South Croydon villas, the first leak we get called to is usually in a valley or behind a chimney, and much less often in the open slope."
Based on South Croydon jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in South Croydon, 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 look at the slate from the ground and from a ladder, then from inside the loft with a torch. On villas we always check the valleys, the back of the stack and the gutter outlets behind the eaves.
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
Slipped slates refixed with tingles or clips, matching reclaimed slate where a piece is broken, lead valleys or flashings dressed or renewed, and gutters cleared so the repair isn't undone by the next downpour.
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 South Croydon.
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 South Croydon
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
Croham Hurst
An ancient wood of oak, beech and hazel on a hill in the middle of the suburbs. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and a Bronze Age round barrow sits near the top.
View on Google Maps - Croham Hurst
Lloyd Park
Around 114 acres of open grass on Coombe Road, named after Frank Lloyd, the newspaper owner whose family handed the land to Croydon. Good for a run, a kickabout or a long walk with the dog.
View on Google Maps - Lloyd Park
Coombe Wood
Formal gardens set out as a series of rooms against a woodland backdrop, near the junction of Coombe Lane and Conduit Lane. There is a cafe in the old stable block.
View on Google Maps - Coombe WoodWhere South Croydon sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: on the doorstep - this is where we are based. 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 South Croydon
On a South Croydon villa the work itself is rarely the expensive part. Height is. A three-storey frontage with a basement area in front often needs a scaffold where a two-storey semi would only need a ladder. Reclaimed slate to match costs more than new, and lead valleys add labour. A shared roof on a converted house can also mean extra visits to agree the work. We price each of those on its own line so you can see which ones apply.
Read the cost guideSouth Croydon roof repair questions
Do I need permission to repair a roof on The Waldrons?
Planning in South Croydon is the London Borough of Croydon. The Waldrons is a conservation area, and numbers 5 to 23 also have an Article 4 direction, in force since January 2016, which removes some permitted development rights. Mending what is there with the same material is normally fine. Changing slate for concrete tile, adding rooflights on the front slope or altering the chimneys is a different matter. Ring the council's planning team first. We will tell you on the visit if anything we suggest falls into that category.
My South Croydon flat shares a roof with the other flats. Who pays?
That depends on the lease, not on whose ceiling is wet. In many converted villas the roof belongs to the freeholder and the cost is split between the flats through the service charge. In some, the top-floor lease includes the roof. Check your lease before agreeing anything. We can put the fault and the price in writing with photos, so whoever is responsible has what they need to make a decision.
Is it worth repairing slate that is over a hundred years old?
Often, yes. Good Welsh slate can outlast the nails that hold it by decades. If the slates are sound but slipping, refixing and replacing the odd broken one buys years. If a lot of them are flaking, or the nails have rusted through across a whole slope, patching becomes a running cost. In that case we will say so and explain why.
How fast can you get to me in CR2?
Usually the same day, because we are based on Penwortham Road. If water is coming through we will make it safe first, with a sheet, a temporary patch or a cleared outlet, and come back for the proper repair once it is dry enough to do it right. Wet slate and fresh lead work don't mix.
Slate on the path in South Croydon? We're round the corner
Ring us or send a photo of what fell off. We are based on Penwortham Road, so a look at your roof is a short drive, not a booking two weeks out. The visit and the written quote cost nothing, and you will know what failed before you decide anything.