Roofers in Reading
for period terraces,
conversions and re-roofs

Long terraced runs in Caversham and Katesgrove were built as complete streets, but individual roofs have since been repaired, reroofed or extended one house at a time. It is common to find a slate roof next to a concrete-tiled neighbour, or a valley gutter shared between two properties with different owners and different maintenance histories.

Shared valleys and party-wall abutments are a frequent source of disputes and leaks, because water from one roof can find its way behind flashing on the next. We inspect the whole junction, not just the property we are quoting for, and explain clearly where the fault actually lies.

The pressure to add bedrooms near the town centre and university has meant decades of loft conversions and rear dormers across Whitley, Katesgrove and the Oxford Road area. Many were built to a budget, and the junctions between the original roof and the new dormer cheeks are the first place we look on a leak call-out.

On HMOs and student lets specifically, roofs often go unmaintained between tenancies because nobody living there is responsible for the building. We will identify what has been neglected and give a fixed price for putting it right, rather than a running estimate that grows with every visit.

Reading sits where the River Kennet meets the Thames, and that low, damp valley setting keeps roof surfaces wetter for longer than you would find further from the water. North-facing slopes in Tilehurst and Southcote, especially under mature trees, are particularly prone to moss and algae build-up.

That growth holds moisture against the tile or slate surface, and in cold snaps the trapped water freezes and expands, spalling the face of the material. Left unchecked for a few winters, a roof that had years of life left starts shedding fragments into the gutter.

Some of the older cottages and boundary walls around Tilehurst and the outskirts of Reading use traditional brick-and-flint construction, and the roofs sitting on top of them were often finished with hand-formed lead at chimneys and verges rather than modern trims.

That lead ages the same way it does everywhere: splits along fold lines, fixings work loose, and previous patches with mastic or mortar tend to fail again within a season or two. We re-form these details properly in correctly sized lead rather than patching over the symptom.

Caversham Heights and similar interwar streets are built with steeper-pitched roofs and tile-hung gables, a style that looks smart but concentrates wind loading on specific verges and ridge lines. Loose verge tiles and slipped hangers on these elevations are a routine finding after autumn and winter storms.

Because the tile-hanging often continues down the wall face as well as the roof, water ingress here can show up as damp inside a bedroom wall rather than a ceiling, which sometimes gets mistaken for rising damp before the roof is properly checked.

Reading has substantial street tree planting, particularly around Caversham and Earley, and leaf litter is a year-round maintenance issue on valley gutters and hopper heads. Once a valley silts up, water backs up under the tile courses above it rather than running away cleanly.

The damage from a blocked valley often appears well away from the blockage itself, inside a ceiling several feet from the actual defect, which is why we trace leaks methodically rather than guessing from where the stain appears.