Roofers in Paisley: roof repairs and leaks

Slates on the path, a damp patch on the bedroom ceiling, or a ridge that's started to rock? Tell us what's happening and we'll pass it to one trusted local roofer who covers Paisley and Renfrewshire. They'll come and look, and give you a price. It costs nothing to ask.

We don't fix roofs ourselves. We arrange the quote, the roofer does the work, and you deal with them directly. There's no list of firms phoning you, just one.

What sort of roof have you got?

Most roofs in Paisley fall into two camps, and they go wrong in different ways.

The older houses, so the Victorian and Edwardian villas in Castlehead, Oakshaw and Thornly Park, and the tenements around the town centre, are mostly roofed in Scottish slate. In Scotland the slates are usually nailed straight onto timber boards called sarking, rather than hung on battens as they are further south. Slate itself lasts a very long time. What gives up first is the nails. When they rust through, a slate slides down out of line or drops off altogether.

The post-war estates, places like Foxbar, Glenburn, Gallowhill and Ferguslie Park, mostly have concrete interlocking tiles. These are heavy and tough, and they rarely crack on their own. The trouble tends to be at the edges: the mortar holding the ridge and verge tiles has dried out and come loose, or the felt under the bottom row has perished so water runs behind the gutter.

Slipped or missing slates and tiles

A single slipped slate is a small job. The roofer slides the slate back, or fits a new one, and holds it with a metal clip called a tingle, since you can't get a hammer to the original nail without lifting the row above. On a tile roof, a broken tile is unclipped and replaced.

Don't leave it for long, though. One gap lets rain onto the sarking or the felt, and that's when a cheap job becomes a dear one. If you've had a storm and can see bits of slate in the garden, that's the time to ask.

Leaks, and why they're hard to find

The damp patch on your ceiling is very often not where the water is getting in. Water runs along the sarking or down a rafter before it finds a way through, so the stain can be a metre or two from the actual fault. That's why a decent roofer starts at the roof, not the ceiling.

The usual suspects:

• A blocked valley, where two slopes of roof meet. Leaves and moss pile up, water backs up under the slates and you get a leak in a strange place.
• A blocked gutter. When it overflows, water can run behind the fascia and into the top of the wall. Our blocked gutters page explains how to tell, and clearing it is often the cheapest fix of all.
• Flashings round a chimney or against a wall that have split or pulled away.
• A cracked or loose ridge.

Ridges, flashings and skews

Ridge tiles sit along the top of the roof, usually bedded in mortar. After enough years of wind and frost the mortar crumbles, the tiles start to move, and eventually one blows off. Re-bedding a ridge is a routine job. On some roofs a dry-fixed system, screwed down with no mortar, is a sensible upgrade.

Flashings are the strips of lead that seal the joints where the roof meets a chimney, a dormer or a wall. Lead lasts well, but it can split, and the mortar holding its edge into the stonework falls out. Then rain runs straight down behind it.

Lots of Scottish houses also have skews: the stone copes running up the gable end, above the roof line. Water can get in where the slates meet the skew, especially if the mortar or flashing along that join has failed, and the copes themselves can crack or shift. It's a job for someone who knows traditional roofs.

Chimneys

Chimneys catch the worst of the weather. Look for crumbling pointing, cracked flaunching (the mortar cap round the pots), loose pots and tired flashings at the base. Most of that can be fixed. If a chimney's no longer used, some people have it taken down below the roof line, though on older houses, and in conservation areas, you'll want to check with the council first.

Repair or re-roof?

Most calls are for repairs, and most repairs are exactly that: a handful of slates, a ridge, a flashing. A full re-roof starts to make sense when the faults are everywhere, rather than in one place. Signs of that include slates slipping across the whole roof (the nails are going), tiles that have gone soft and flaky, or sarking that's rotten in several spots.

On a slate roof there's often a middle way: strip it, replace the sarking and felt, and put the good slates back with new nails, topping up with matching second-hand ones. It keeps the look of an older house and can cost less than new materials.

If anyone tells you that a single slipped slate means you need a whole new roof, get a second opinion.

Roofers in Renfrew

Renfrew is flat and open, with the Clyde and the Cart on two sides, and the wind comes up the river with very little to stop it. That's hard on ridges and verge tiles in particular, and after a big westerly it's often the edges of the roof that have lifted. The older stone buildings round the town centre are mostly slate. The council-built and private estates further out are mostly concrete tile, and the newer homes towards the river have modern tiled roofs with dry-fixed ridges. If you're in Renfrew, our Renfrew gutter cleaning page covers the gutters that sit on those roofs.

Roofers in Johnstone

Johnstone was laid out as a planned town in the late 1700s, and the streets in the middle still have older slate roofs, many with skews, chimneys and lead valleys that need a careful hand. Around it are the 1930s estates, now heading for a hundred years old, where the original roof coverings have often been replaced once already, and the post-war estates such as Cochrane Castle and Johnstone Castle with concrete tiles. Some of the higher ground on the south side takes a lot of weather. For the gutters, see gutter cleaning in Johnstone.

While someone's up there

If the roofer needs scaffolding anyway, it can be worth having other jobs done while it's up. The obvious ones are the gutters and the fascias and soffits right below the roof line, and any roughcasting or harling on the walls. Sharing the scaffold saves paying for it twice. Just mention it on the form and we'll pass it all on in one go.

Gutters on their own? Head to our gutter cleaning page.