Beacon Basingstoke Roofing

Roofers in Guildford

Guildford is 25.6 road miles east of Basingstoke, a cathedral town on the River Wey with the Surrey Hills closing in on three sides. From hand-made clay in Quarry Street to Welsh slate on its later Victorian buildings and 1920s houses in Westborough, its roofs are varied, and we survey each with photographs.

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White uPVC fascia, soffit and guttering under a tiled roof

Roofs we see in Guildford

  • A thatched cottage in a Test Valley village with a brick chimney

    Hand-made clay in the old centre

    The council's town centre appraisal calls the Quarry Street roofscape very important, and describes it as mainly hand-made clay tiles on pitched roofs with brick chimneys. Hand-made tiles have an uneven face and a gentle camber that machine-made ones cannot copy, so a repair here depends on finding reclaimed tiles of the same character, and on leaving the sound ones alone.

  • Brick estate houses with concrete tile roofs among pine trees

    Welsh slate and tile-hanging

    Welsh slate became the preferred covering in Guildford after 1845, when the railways made it cheaper to carry, so most town centre buildings from after the mid-19th century are slated. The same appraisal records vertical tile-hanging in locally made clay on many walls. Slate fails by slipping and cracking at its fixings, while tile-hanging fails at the nail and at the junction with the roof.

  • Brick chimney stack with clay pots

    Charlotteville and Westborough

    Charlotteville was laid out by the Guildford architect Henry Peak in 1862, and its heart is a conservation area. The Westborough Estate came in the 1920s. Charlotteville went up in the years when Welsh slate had become the preferred covering in Guildford, while Westborough has interwar houses where the ridge, hip and eaves details have now been through a century of weather.

25.6 road miles east of Basingstoke

Planning rules for Guildford roofs

Guildford comes under Guildford Borough Council for planning and building control, and the borough is rich in protected buildings: more than 1,000 on the statutory list and 40 conservation areas. The town centre and Charlotteville are among those areas, and the council publishes an appraisal for each. The town centre appraisal records what it values in the roofs, from the hand-made clay of Quarry Street to the Welsh slate that followed the railways. Read the relevant appraisal on the Guildford Borough Council website before changing the covering of an older building.

In a conservation area, replacing a failed tile or slate with a matching one is the least contentious kind of job. Replacing slate with concrete tile, or altering a chimney or roof line, could require consent, and the conservation officer at the council is the person to put the question to, as for any listed house. On the interwar estates the usual issue is building control: stripping and re-covering a whole roof can be notifiable, and we take care of the paperwork. If you want a rooflight in a loft room, our page on roof window building regulations sets out what is required.

Guildford roofs: faults and fixes

Guildford's roofs reflect its history in layers: clay tile from the earliest centuries, Welsh slate from the railway age, and machine-made tile on the twentieth-century estates. Each layer has its own failures, and each calls for a different hand.

Chapter 1: Why are slates slipping on our Victorian terrace near Charlotteville?

What we find

A slate roof is held on by small fixings: each slate has two holes and is nailed to a timber batten, with the next course overlapping the heads. Slates of the railway era were nailed with iron or galvanised nails, and those nails rust in time. Once a nail has thinned, the slate's weight drags it through the hole or breaks the slate at the head, and it slides down until the course below stops it, or it drops into the garden.

Look for gaps in an otherwise regular pattern, broken pieces in the gutter, or slates that sit crooked. Water then reaches the underlay, if the house has any. Many Victorian roofs have none, only the timber boarding or battens, and moisture works down into the loft quickly. Natural Welsh slate can last a very long time, so slipped slates usually mean fixings have failed, not that the slate has worn out.

What we fix

For a few slipped slates, we replace them individually: the broken slate is released with a ripper tool, and a new or reclaimed slate is held by a lead or copper clip called a tingle, with no new nail hole needed. Reclaimed slate often suits an old roof better than new, because it matches the weathered colour. If the fixings have failed widely, we strip the slope and re-slate it with new battens and copper nails.

UK guides report single slate repairs at £100 to £250 for labour plus £5 to £25 per slate, and re-slating in Welsh slate at £140 to £180 per square metre; your fixed quote follows the survey. Our slate roofing service explains each option, and the page on how a single slate is replaced shows the technique.

Chapter 2: Can the vertical tile-hanging on our Guildford house be repaired without taking it all down?

What we find

Tile-hanging is a covering of clay tiles fixed vertically to the upper walls of a house, and it appears on many buildings in Guildford town centre. The tiles are hung on timber battens and held by nibs and nails, and they overlap like roof tiles. Locally made clay, hand-made at first and machine-made after about 1900, gives each house its own character.

The weak points are the nails, which rust, and the places where the hanging meets something else: the roof, a window, a corner. At the base the lowest course runs into a lead or timber detail, and water can get behind it. You may see a few tiles dropped, a bulge where the battens have rotted, or damp on the ceiling beneath a gable. Frost lifts the face of softer tiles, and creepers hold moisture against them.

What we fix

Repair is usually possible in sections. We take off the tiles in the affected panel, check the battens and the felt or membrane behind them, replace what has rotted, and rehang the sound tiles using stainless nails or clips. Gaps are filled with reclaimed tiles that match the colour and finish, and corner tiles are specially shaped, so we source or have them made to suit.

Junctions at the roof edge and around windows get new lead soakers or flashings, since those are the places water finds first. Where the tiling is in a conservation area, we choose materials to match what the appraisal describes, and we advise you to check with the council's conservation officer before any change. You get a photograph record of the wall before and after, and the panel we repair is cut in so the new tiles sit in line with the old ones. Where the battens behind are sound, we keep them; where they are soft, they are replaced along the whole width of the affected panel so the new fixings bite into good timber.

Chapter 3: The ridge and hips on our Westborough 1920s house look tired. Do they need doing?

What we find

Houses on the 1920s Westborough Estate are now about a century old, and roofs of that age have usually been repaired at least once. The ridge and hip tiles, the capping along the top and down the angled corners, were bedded on mortar, and the hips were often finished with a metal hip iron at the foot to stop tiles creeping. Mortar shrinks and cracks over this length of time, and the tiles loosen.

You may notice a hip tile that has dropped, a crack running along the ridge pointing, or grit and mortar in the gutters. In the loft, light at the ridge line shows a gap. Interwar eaves are also a common weak point, with felt that has perished and fascia boards that have rotted. A tired ridge on a roof this age often means the eaves and the hip irons deserve a look too, and a single visit with ladders and loft torch settles it.

What we fix

We inspect the ridge and hips together with the eaves, so we can price the whole job honestly. If the tiles are sound, they can be lifted and refixed on a dry-fix system, in which the cap tiles are held mechanically to a batten, so a failing mortar bed can never let them go again. That follows the British Standard, BS 5534, which asks for ridges, hips and verges to be fixed mechanically.

Where felt has failed at the eaves, we fit a new eaves tray and replace any rotten fascia. National cost guides give £900 to £1,600 to dry-fix a semi-detached ridge, with scaffold adding £300 to £900. See our ridge tile repairs page for more on each system.

Chapter 4: How do we repair the brick chimney on our older Guildford house?

What we find

Brick chimneys are part of the look of Guildford's older streets, and the council's appraisal of the Quarry Street roofscape notes them alongside the clay tile. A stack takes weather on every side. The mortar joints soften, the bricks weather and the flaunching, the mortar crown at the top of the stack, cracks.

Below the stack sits the lead flashing, which ties the chimney to the roof. If it lifts, water runs behind it. You may see white salts on the brickwork, a damp mark on the breast of the chimney, or a lean in the stack. On older houses the pots can also loosen, and an unused flue that is not ventilated may hold condensation that stains the breast from the inside.

What we fix

We climb the stack, photograph each face, and decide what needs doing. Repointing is carried out in a mortar compatible with the brick, with lime on soft old bricks. Cracked flaunching is rebuilt, loose pots are rebedded, and lead flashings and soakers are renewed where they have failed. A leaning stack may need taking down and rebuilding, and we only recommend that if the brickwork warrants it.

UK guides put chimney repointing at £450 to £1,200 and chimney leadwork at £350 to £920, with the fixed quote coming after the survey. See our chimney repairs page for the full range.

Guildford roofing questions

Can the Welsh slates on a Guildford house be reused when the roof is re-covered?

Often they can. Welsh slate became the usual covering in the town after 1845, and good slates outlast their fixings by many years. Slipped slates usually mean corroded nails rather than failed slate. Where the battens and underlay are sound we refix the slates, replace broken ones with a matching colour and thickness, and note in the quote which slates were reused.

Which Guildford roofs need consent before repair?

Listed buildings and houses in the borough's 40 conservation areas need care. Replacing like with like is usually fine, but a change of material, such as slate to concrete tile, may need consent from Guildford Borough Council, so ask its conservation officer first. Our guide to roof work on a listed building sets out what to expect.

Can you match hand-made clay tiles for a roof near Quarry Street?

We can source reclaimed hand-made clay tiles that match the colour, texture and camber of your existing ones, and use them to patch the damaged section rather than replace the whole slope. New tiles rarely blend in. We check the roof first and photograph it, so you and the council can see what is original and what has failed.

Does the River Wey make roofs damper in the town centre?

Not by itself. Damp roofs usually come from shade, trees and blocked gutters, not from the river. But properties beside water can see more moss and algae, and flat roofs and lead need checking for pooling. We survey the gutters, the north slopes and the valleys, and say what is cosmetic and what needs fixing.

Do you repair roofs on 1920s houses in Westborough?

Yes. These interwar roofs often need the ridge, hips and eaves looked at together. We lift a sample of tiles, check the battens and underlay, and quote only for what is needed. If you are considering a loft conversion, our roof windows for loft conversions page is a useful start, and the Basingstoke roofing homepage lists our other services.

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