A tile on the lawn is the roof telling you something. Usually it's a nail that has rusted through. Sometimes it's a batten gone soft underneath. We carry out roof repairs in Crayford from our base 1.3 miles away, so a small job is never a long drive for us. Around Green Walk and the rest of Barnes Cray, the cottages are about 110 years old, and repairs need care because old tiles crack if you lean on them. In Barnehurst the semis are younger, but still close to a hundred. Nearer the river and the marshes, wind is the usual culprit. Wherever your house is, we find the fault, fix it, and photograph the result.
A roofer rings you back to arrange a visit.
A repair should stop the leak and tell you how long the rest of the roof has left. These are the things we do on every one.
01
A damp patch on a bedroom ceiling can sit a metre away from the hole. Water runs along battens and felt before it drips. We trace it back from the loft side, so the fix goes where the water actually gets in. Guesswork on a leak usually means paying for two visits.
02
Old roofs need old-looking tiles. A shiny new one in the middle of a weathered cottage roof sticks out from the street. We source reclaimed or close-match tiles where we can, and tell you upfront if an exact match isn't out there. Sometimes close enough is the honest best.
03
Ridge mortar on older Crayford roofs crumbles after decades of frost. We rake out and rebed on a sound mix, or fit a mechanical dry-fix ridge where it suits the roof. Either way, the ridge holds through the next gale. Loose ridge tiles are heavy, and they don't land gently.
04
Bitumen paint over a split flashing buys a season at best. We cut out the failed piece and dress in new code lead, chased properly into the brickwork, whether that's round the chimney or where a back addition meets the house.
05
Once we're up there, we'll tell you whether the roof has years in it or whether repair money is being thrown away. If a re-roof is coming, you'll hear it from us before you pay twice.
06
From Chastilian Road to the middle of Crayford takes about three minutes. That makes small jobs worth doing properly, and it means a temporary cover can go on fast if the weather is turning.
1,000+
Roofs repaired, renewed and rebuilt
10 yrs
Written guarantee on every re-roof
5★
The only rating anyone has left us
£0
For the survey and the written quote
The Vickers garden village at Barnes Cray is the oldest large group of houses we work on here. About 600 cottages were built from around 1915, in a deliberate mix of styles. That variety shows on the roof. Pitches, eaves details and chimney positions change from one block to the next, so a single repair method doesn't fit them all. After a century, many carry partial re-covers, odd replacement tiles and flashings patched in different decades.
The Barnehurst roads were laid out from 1926 onward. A pair of semis from that period shares one roof down the party wall, and the two halves are often in very different states because one owner re-roofed and the other didn't. Where old and new coverings meet, the join is a classic leak point. We check it whenever we're working on either side. It's a five-minute job to look and an expensive one to ignore. A bead of mortar pushed into the gap is not a fix, whatever the last person told you.
If the survey shows the whole covering is past saving, read about re-roofing in Crayford and what a full strip and re-cover involves.
"On the older Crayford cottages, the slipped tile people ring about is usually the visible end of a batten or nail problem running along that whole course."
Tell us what you've noticed: a damp mark, a tile in the garden, a drip in the loft. A photo from your phone helps a lot. We'll book a free look at a time that suits you.
We check the outside first, then the loft. On an old cottage roof the underside often shows the real story: wet timber, chinks of daylight, rusty nail tips. We note every fault, not only the one you called about.
You get a written price for the repair, with any extra problems listed separately. That way you can choose what to do now and what can safely wait. Nothing is bundled in without your say-so.
If rain is due before we can start, a temporary cover goes on. That means a sheet properly weighted and fixed, not a tarpaulin flapping off the gutter and filling up like a sail.
We lift the tiles around the problem, replace soft battens and torn underlay, refix with the correct nails or clips, and relay the tiles in their original pattern. Ridge and lead work gets the same treatment.
For a leak that's been hard to pin down, we run water over the repaired area and watch from inside. If it stays dry under a hose, it'll stay dry under a heavy shower.
We finish with before-and-after photos and a short note on anything else worth keeping an eye on. You decide what, if anything, happens next. There's no pressure either way.
10
Years' cover on a new roof
1,000+
Roofing jobs finished
Paperwork in your hand on the last day. Not posted out "in due course".
Re-roof a house in Crayford with us and you get 10 years of cover on the workmanship. It's a written document. It has your address on it, lists what was done, and is dated the day the roof is signed off. If water gets in because something was fitted wrong - a batten, a fixing, a lap, a flashing - a roofer comes back and puts it right. You don't pay for that.
Why are we happy to promise ten years? Because of how the roof goes on. Every tile or slate is mechanically fixed to BS 5534, the current British Standard. Ridges and hips are fixed too, not just sat in mortar. A breathable membrane goes down first. Where a roof meets a wall, a chimney or the house next door, it gets proper lead or a tested dry system. Shortcuts there are what make a guarantee expensive, so we don't take them.
Tiles, slates and membranes also carry the maker's own warranty. Those vary by product, and your paperwork tells you which ones apply. If a job is too unusual to guarantee in the normal way, you'll hear that at quote stage.
The table below sets the usual repair options side by side. On a Barnes Cray cottage, the right answer depends more on the battens and fixings than on how the tiles look from the road.
| Comparison point | Targeted repair | Patch-and-seal | Partial re-roof | Full re-roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | £180 - £1,600 depending on the fault | Low, often under £200 | Several thousand, priced by area | £8,000 - £24,000+ by house size |
| How long it lasts | As long as the roof around it, if done right | Months, sometimes a year or two | Decades on the renewed slope | Typically 50+ years, depending on covering |
| Disruption | A few hours from a ladder or tower | An hour or two | Scaffold on one side for several days | Full scaffold, roughly one to two weeks |
| When it makes sense | Sound roof with one clear fault | Stopgap until a proper repair | One slope failed, the other still sound | Battens, felt and fixings failing everywhere |
| Paperwork you get | Written quote, photos and a note of the work | Usually nothing worth keeping | Written quote, building control if over the limits | Written quote and our 10 year guarantee |
| Building regulations | Not needed | Not needed | Needed past 50% of the roof or 25% of the envelope | Building control approval normally required |
Most repairs here fall between £180 for a simple tile refix and about £1,200 for a full ridge. These are the things that push a Crayford price up or down.
On the Barnes Cray cottages, replacement tiles sometimes have to come from a reclamation yard. That costs more than a new tile and takes some finding. If no decent match exists, we may suggest borrowing tiles from a hidden slope and putting new ones there instead.
A bay window at the front, a conservatory at the back or a narrow side path all change what access we need. A ladder job costs far less than a scaffold. We'll explain which is safe for your roof and why.
One wet batten is cheap. Three courses of them is not. Leaks left through a wet winter tend to creep sideways, which is why a slipped tile spotted in October usually costs less to fix than the same tile found in March.
Rebedding a ridge on an interwar Barnehurst semi is usually a half-day or full-day job, in the £450 to £1,200 band depending on length. Chimney flashing adds to that if the stack needs attention while we're up there.
Ordinary repairs, like refixing tiles, rebedding a ridge or replacing flashing to match, don't need planning permission. Crayford falls under the London Borough of Bexley. If your house is listed, or in the Iron Mill Lane or Star Hill conservation areas, talk to Bexley's planning team before changing anything visible. Repairs that keep the same materials are usually straightforward.
Exposure plays a part. The ground drops away towards the Cray and the marshes, so roofs on the open side take more of each gust. Old sand and cement mortar shrinks and cracks over time, and the wind then rocks the ridge tiles until they lift. Rebedding with a sound mix, or switching to a mechanically fixed dry ridge, breaks that cycle. On the most exposed roofs we usually suggest the mechanical option.
We're on Chastilian Road in Dartford, about 1.3 miles and three minutes from Crayford by road. That's close enough to drop in on the way past another job. For a leak or storm damage, we'll aim to make the roof safe quickly, then come back for the full repair once the weather allows. For non-urgent work, we'll agree a survey slot that suits you.
Usually, yes. A lot of these roofs have years left if the timbers are sound. We replace what's failed, match the tiles as closely as we can, and leave the rest alone. Replacing a whole roof because of one bad patch is rarely necessary, and we'll tell you if someone has quoted for more than the roof needs. Keeping original fabric where it's sound also keeps the cottage looking like its neighbours.
Don't agree to anything on the doorstep. After the February 2022 storms, Kent's Community Warden Service put out a warning, through Ash Parish Council, about an elderly man charged more than £3,000 for poor roof repairs. Their advice was simple: never assume, never believe, always confirm. Get a roofer you've chosen yourself to take a look. We'll do it free and give you photos.
Crayford's parish church on Church Hill dates back to around 1100. It is one of only three churches in England built with twin naves, so the inside is split down the middle by a central arcade.
Learn more about St Paulinus Church on Google Maps
A small public garden in Crayford town centre where the River Cray runs between planted, reed-lined banks.
Learn more about Waterside Gardens on Google Maps
Open grassland and old trees on the site of Shenstone, a house built in the 1830s by the printing engineer Augustus Applegath. Crayford's council bought the estate in 1947 and pulled the house down, leaving the grounds as a public park.
Learn more about Shenstone Park on Google MapsEvery review left for us so far has been five stars. We're adding them here as they come in.
Reviews only tell you so much anyway. When a roofer comes out to Crayford, ask to see photos of a recent job on a house like yours. A good roofer will have plenty and won't mind you asking.
Send a photo with the form or call 01322 946667. We'll look at it free and give you a written price for the repair, and nothing you don't need. If the roof's fine, we'll say that too.
