West Wickham · BR4
Roof Repairs In West Wickham
Is your 1930s West Wickham roof starting to let go?
Repairs to interwar tiled roofs, hanging tiles and gables across West Wickham and Coney Hall
West Wickham has a BR4 postcode and a Bromley council tax bill, but its roofs have a lot in common with Shirley next door. Most are on interwar semis and detached houses, on the roads off Station Road and Hayes Lane and up towards Corkscrew Hill, with the 1930s Coney Hall estate to the east. Many are now about ninety years old. A lot of these houses also have tile-hung upper walls on the bay or gable, which is roofing in all but name and fails in the same ways. Add the mature planting along the residential roads, which keeps north slopes in shade, and moss is a regular visitor.
Free roof survey 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
Two brothers and West Wickham's tile-hung houses
Many West Wickham houses have tile-hung upper walls that want checking whenever the roof does. Roof Repairs Croydon is a family business, and the brothers who run it, John and Mark, often price a job together.
They think in much the same way and aim for the same things, so you get one clear answer rather than two. And because both know the job, whichever brother you reach can tell you how it's going.
1,000+
Roofs put right
10 year
Written workmanship guarantee
£0
To have somebody come and look
Repair first
Replacement is the last resort
From Kent village to interwar suburb
West Wickham began as a Kent village around its church and Wickham Court, the manor house Sir Henry Heydon built in the late 1400s. The railway came in 1882, but the big growth was between the wars, when farmland was sold off and estates went up fast. Coney Hall shows how fast. Morrell Brothers bought Coney Hall Farm and started building around a thousand homes in 1933, many with polygonal bays and half-timbered gables, priced so young families could get in with a deposit of a pound.
Builders working at that pace used whatever was cheap and to hand: machine-made tiles on simple hipped roofs, tile hanging across the front bays and timber barge boards on the mock-Tudor gables. Ninety-odd years on, any underlay has often perished, the nails holding the hanging tiles have rusted, and the half-timbering lets water into the wall behind it. Trees along the roads and in back gardens keep north slopes damp, so moss lifts the tile edges and then ends up in the gutters. The small roof over the ground-floor bay is another regular, usually leaking where it meets the brickwork.
Roof repairs West Wickham asks for most
Roof Leak Repairs
Water on a West Wickham landing ceiling often comes from a valley or the tile hanging on the bay, not the main slope. We trace it from the loft before anything gets replaced.
Read more about roof leak repairs in West WickhamFascias & Soffits
Mock-Tudor gables in Coney Hall carry barge boards and fascias that have been up since the 1930s. We replace rotten sections and keep the eaves ventilation open.
Read more about fascias & soffits in West WickhamRoof Replacement
Some 1930s roofs here really have reached the end. If yours has, you get the reasons in writing. If it hasn't, we say so and price the repair instead.
Read more about roof replacement in West WickhamThose three come up most on West Wickham roofs. Everything else in the services menu is covered here as well.
What changes when the roof is in West Wickham
Same era as much of south Croydon, a different council, and a few details of its own. These are the things that shape a repair here.
Bromley's rules, not Croydon's
If your job goes beyond like-for-like repair, the application goes to the London Borough of Bromley. We know which council and which policies apply, so nobody sends you to the wrong office.
Tile hanging treated as roofing
Hanging tiles on bays and gables are nailed to battens just like a roof slope. When the nails rust or the battens rot, tiles drop. We refix them properly instead of reaching for adhesive.
Matching 1930s tiles
Plenty of West Wickham and Coney Hall roofs carry tiles nobody makes any more. We look for reclaimed stock so a repair doesn't leave a patch of a different colour in the middle of the slope.
Shaded slopes cleared properly
Moss comes off by hand, never with a jet wash. Then we check whether it has lifted tile edges or choked the valleys before calling the job finished.
Straight advice on repair or replace
A ninety-year-old roof isn't automatically finished. We look at the battens, the underlay and the tiles separately, and only recommend a new roof when the photographs back it up.
"On West Wickham's 1930s houses, the tile hanging on bays and gables needs work about as often as the main roof does, and it's the part owners least expect."
Based on West Wickham jobs handled by Roof Repairs Croydon
A roof repair in West Wickham, 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 a West Wickham semi we check the main slopes, the tile-hung bays and gables, and the valleys where moss collects, then go into the loft to see what state the battens and any underlay are in.
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 or broken tiles swapped for matched or reclaimed ones, hanging tiles refixed on new battens where needed, barge boards renewed, and gutters and valleys cleared of moss before we leave.
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 West Wickham.
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 West Wickham
Nothing to do with roofs. Three places worth an afternoon if you live here or are thinking of moving in.
West Wickham Common
Heath, woodland and a cluster of old earthworks off Croydon Road, bought by the Corporation of London in 1892 as public open space. The banks and ditches date from prehistoric times to the Tudor period, and some of the oak pollards are at least 600 years old.
View on Google Maps - West Wickham Common
St John the Baptist Church
West Wickham's parish church, rebuilt in the reign of Henry VII by Sir Henry Heydon, who bought the manor in 1469. Painted glass in the chapel shows the saints the Heydon children were named after. Wickham Court stands nearby.
View on Google Maps - St John the Baptist Church
Hayes Common
Around 225 acres of heath and woodland just east of West Wickham, crossed by bridleways and footpaths. In 1869 it became the first common protected under the Metropolitan Commons Act, after local people opposed plans to build on it.
View on Google Maps - Hayes CommonWhere West Wickham 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 Bromley.
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 West Wickham
Prices on West Wickham's interwar houses depend on how much of the original roof is still sound. Refixing a few tiles is a small job. Rebattening a run of tile hanging on a bay, renewing barge boards on a mock-Tudor gable or tracking down reclaimed tiles to match a discontinued pattern all add labour and materials. Gables and upper hanging tiles usually need scaffold, and that goes on its own line of the quote.
Read the cost guideWest Wickham roof repair questions
Which council handles planning for roof work in West Wickham?
The London Borough of Bromley, not Croydon. West Wickham borders Shirley and Addington and plenty of people assume it's Croydon, but the planning authority, local plan and building control team are all Bromley's. Like-for-like repairs don't need permission. Changing the covering or the roof's shape, or adding rooflights, might. If your house is listed or in a conservation area, check with Bromley before anything is altered.
Why do the hanging tiles on my bay keep falling off?
Usually the nails have rusted or the battens behind have rotted, so the tiles have lost their fixing. On 1930s houses round here those battens are often the originals. Sticking the odd tile back with adhesive buys a little time. The proper repair is to strip the affected area, renew the battens and membrane, and rehang the tiles on new nails, reusing the old tiles where they're sound.
Is a ninety-year-old roof worth repairing, or should it be replaced?
Often it's worth repairing. The tiles on these houses can outlast their fixings by a long way. What matters is whether the battens are sound, whether there's any working underlay, and how widespread the slipping is. If those answers are mostly good, targeted repairs buy plenty more years. If tiles are moving all over and the battens are soft, a new roof is the better use of the money. Either way, you see the evidence.
Why is there so much moss on the north side of my roof?
Shade and damp. A north slope gets little direct sun anyway, and the mature trees along the residential roads cut that down further, so the surface never dries out properly. Moss roots into the tile texture, lifts the edges and sheds into gutters and valleys. Hand clearing and a biocide treatment help, and trimming back overhanging branches, where you're allowed to, slows the return.
Tiles on the drive in West Wickham?
Main roof, bay or gable end, we'll come over from Croydon free of charge, look at it from outside and from the loft, and tell you plainly whether it needs a repair, a bigger job or nothing yet.