Thornton Heath · CR7
Roof Repairs In Thornton Heath
Is the roof over your back addition in Thornton Heath leaking again?
Repairs to slate front slopes, tired felt rear roofs and overloaded rainwater goods across CR7
Thornton Heath is the low end of the borough, and a lot of its roof trouble follows from that. Water off the higher ground to the south drains down this way, so gutters and downpipes here carry more than their share and show it fast. The streets off Brigstock Road, Grange Road, Parchmore Road and Beulah Road are mostly long Victorian and Edwardian terraces: slate on the front, parapet walls between houses, and a felt or asphalt roof over the rear addition. That rear roof is where most of our calls end up. It has usually been patched by three or four different people, and each patch was laid over the last. We find the actual way in, then repair that.
Free roof survey 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
Thornton Heath, and the two brothers behind the firm
Long Victorian terraces, and rear additions under felt that has been patched over and over. Call about one of those in Thornton Heath and you're dealing with Roof Repairs Croydon, a family business run by John and Mark, two brothers who have never fallen out over work.
They often go through the numbers together, so a patchwork back roof gets one straight price instead of two different opinions. Can't reach John? Mark will usually answer, and he'll know the job as well as his brother does.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
A railway suburb built on the bottom of the slope
Thornton Heath was mostly farmland until the station opened on the line to Victoria in December 1862. Over the next fifty years the fields around it filled with terraces for people who worked in town, and ribbon building crept along the London Road. The stone clock tower where Brigstock Road meets the High Street went up in 1900, when a lot of these streets were still being finished. Plenty of the original houses are still single homes. Many others are now two or three flats, which matters when a roof needs work, because the people paying for it and the people living under it are not always the same.
Most of these houses are now well over a century old, and their rear roofs have had the hardest life. The low roof over the kitchen and bathroom was cheap to build, easy to reach from a back bedroom window, and therefore patched by whoever was handy. We regularly cut into a Thornton Heath flat roof and find bitumen paint over felt over asphalt, with water moving between the layers and coming out a metre from where it got in. Add a valley gutter shared with next door and a downpipe taking far more water than it was sized for, and you have the usual leak.
Roof repairs Thornton Heath asks for most
Flat Roof Repairs
The felt or asphalt over the back addition is the roof we work on most in CR7. We cut back to sound material rather than sealing over another layer.
Read more about flat roof repairs in Thornton HeathGuttering
On ground this low, a gutter with a bit of silt in it overflows in the first proper downpour. We clear, refall and reseal, and change undersized runs.
Read more about guttering in Thornton HeathEmergency Roof Repairs
Water through a bathroom ceiling on a Sunday night is a common call from these terraces. We make it safe first and come back to repair it properly.
Read more about emergency roof repairs in Thornton HeathThose three come up most on Thornton Heath roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
What getting it right looks like on a Thornton Heath terrace
The houses here fail in a fairly predictable order. Knowing that order saves you paying for the wrong repair first.
Layers stripped, not added to
If a rear flat roof has three coverings on it already, a fourth will not hold. We open it up, find where the deck has gone soft and replace that section before anything new goes down.
Downpipes sized for the water
A lot of Thornton Heath downpipes are the original narrow cast iron, or plastic of the same size. Where water backs up, we check whether the outlet and pipe can actually cope with the run feeding them.
Parapets checked from both sides
The party parapets between terraced houses crack along the coping and let water into the wall behind your plaster. We look at the top and the flashing at its base, not just the slates beside it.
A paper trail for flat owners
If you own one flat in a converted house, you get a written note of what we found and which part of the roof it sits on. That makes the conversation with the freeholder or the other flats shorter.
Front slopes left alone if sound
Old slate on the front slope often has years left in it. If the leak is at the back, we say so and quote for the back, rather than talking you into a full re-roof you do not need.
"On Thornton Heath terraces, the leak someone rings us about turns out to be on the rear addition far more often than on the main slate roof they were worried about."
Based on Thornton Heath jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in Thornton Heath, 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 go up the back as well as the front, because on these terraces the rear addition and its gutter cause most leaks. We probe the flat roof deck for soft spots and run water down the downpipe.
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
On a typical CR7 terrace that means cutting out failed felt back to firm decking, replacing rotten boards, laying the new covering with proper upstands at the wall, and refixing any slipped front slates while access is up.
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 Thornton Heath.
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 Thornton Heath
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
Thornton Heath Clock Tower
The stone clock tower at the junction of Brigstock Road, Parchmore Road and the High Street was put up in 1900 to mark the turn of the century, partly paid for by local subscription. It has been restored in recent years, including a new copper roof on top.
View on Google Maps - Thornton Heath Clock Tower
Thornton Heath Library
A Carnegie library that opened in 1914, now with a modern glazed entrance pavilion and reading room added on the front. It is on Croydon's local list and still a busy branch library on Brigstock Road.
View on Google Maps - Thornton Heath Library
Selhurst Park
Crystal Palace's ground since it opened in 1924, about a fifteen-minute walk from Thornton Heath station via Whitehorse Lane. On a home match day you will hear it from a lot of back gardens round here.
View on Google Maps - Selhurst ParkWhere Thornton Heath sits on our patch
From our base on Penwortham Road, CR2 0QS: about 15 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 Thornton Heath
What moves the price on a Thornton Heath house is usually the rear roof. Patching a split in sound felt is a small job. Stripping several old coverings and replacing a rotten deck is a bigger one, and you will not know which you have until someone looks. Then there is access. A mid-terrace with no side passage means every bag of old felt comes out through your hallway, and front work above a parapet may need a tower.
Read the cost guideThornton Heath roof repair questions
Do I need planning permission to repair my roof in Thornton Heath?
Not for a straight repair. Planning and building control in Thornton Heath sit with the London Borough of Croydon, and replacing like with like is not something the council needs to approve. It changes if you alter the look of the roof or its covering, so check Croydon's conservation area list for your street first. It also changes if the roof work is part of turning a house into a small HMO, because Croydon's borough-wide Article 4 direction means that conversion needs permission.
Why do Thornton Heath gutters overflow when the ones up the hill seem fine?
Partly because of where the area sits. It is the low ground below the Norwood ridge and the higher parts of the borough, so heavy rain arrives in a hurry and there is less slack in the system. Add old narrow downpipes, outlets half-blocked with silt and moss, and shared gutters between terraces that nobody clears, and the first heavy shower finds the weak point. Clearing helps. Sometimes the run genuinely needs a bigger outlet or pipe.
My rear flat roof has been patched many times. Is it worth patching again?
Sometimes. If the deck underneath is firm and the leak is one obvious split or a failed upstand, a proper repair is fine. If there are several layers and soft spots when you walk on it, another patch just moves the leak. We tell you which you have after looking, with photos of the deck, so you can decide.
I own a flat in a converted house. Can you repair just my part of the roof?
We can repair whatever part of the roof the leak is coming from, but who pays and who must agree depends on your lease, not on which ceiling is wet. In a lot of converted Thornton Heath houses the roof belongs to the freeholder or is shared between the flats. We give you a written report saying exactly where the fault is, which you can pass to the freeholder or the other owners before work starts.
Water coming in at the back? Get it found properly
A photo of the ceiling stain and one of the back roof, taken from a bedroom window, tells us a lot. Send them over or ring. We look at the front and the back on the same visit, and you hear what failed before you hear a price. If it can wait, we say so.