Roofers in Leatherheadfor repairs, re-roofsand flat roof replacements

Where a rear extension or garage conversion meets the main house, a flashing or soaker has to carry water away from the join. On work done cheaply or decades ago, that detail is often mortar or sealant rather than dressed lead.

Mortar cracks and sealant shrinks. Water then runs behind the covering and appears on a ceiling several feet from where it got in, which is why the first repair attempt so often misses. We open up the junction, find the path, and re-form it in lead.

Leatherhead has long runs of houses built between the 1920s and 1960s. Their tiles frequently outlast the nails holding them, so slippage starts appearing randomly across the slope.

The honest test is the pattern. Isolated slippage after high wind is a repair. Steady slippage across the whole roof means the fixings are done, and each individual re-lay is money towards a roof that needs re-covering.

Extension and garage flat roofs across the town were often laid with minimal fall, and decking sags over time until water stands permanently in the middle.

Standing water is what kills a flat roof: it works into laps, freezes, expands and lifts them. Overlaying a soft deck buys a season. We lift the build-up, replace soft decking, correct the falls with firrings and re-cover with the edges, upstands and outlets detailed properly.

The roads climbing towards Fetcham, Givons Grove and the downs are heavily treed, and gutters there fill with leaf litter every autumn without fail.

Once a gutter backs up, water runs over the back edge onto the fascia and down the wall. The damage that follows (rotten boards, damp at first-floor level, stained brickwork) costs many times more than clearing the gutter would have.

Older Leatherhead properties carry stacks that have often had no attention in thirty or forty years. Joints erode, flaunching cracks around the pots and bricks spall after repeated freezing.

Water then tracks down inside the stack and shows as damp on a chimney breast, which is commonly mistaken for condensation. Repointing, replacing damaged brick, renewing flaunching and fitting new pots stops it at source.

Where two roof slopes meet, a valley carries a large volume of water. On extended and complex Leatherhead roofs, valleys are common, and so are valleys full of moss and leaf debris.

Blocked valleys overflow sideways under the tiles. If a previous repair sealed over the problem instead of clearing and re-lining it, the water simply finds the next gap. Proper lead valley work is the fix.