The Leak Is Rarely Where the Water Gets In
The wet patch on your ceiling is where the water ends up — not where it's getting in. Rain finds a gap somewhere up on the roof, then tracks along rafters, laths and the back of the plaster until it finds a low point to drip from, often metres from the actual hole. On older East London houses it can be worse still: thick brick parapets soak water up like a sponge and let it out slowly on the inside, so the stain can sit a room or two away from the fault.
That's why chasing the stain doesn't work — and why a leak that's been "fixed" two or three times keeps coming back. The job isn't patching where the water shows; it's tracing it back to where it gets in, and proving it.
How We Find a Leak
We start in the loft if there is one. Damp staining on the timbers, tide marks on the felt and daylight showing through tell most of the story before we ever get on the roof. Then we go up and work through the usual suspects in order, from the most likely to the least — and we photograph what we find, so you can see the problem with your own eyes before you agree to anything.
The Usual Suspects on East London Roofs
After years on the terraces and flats around here, the same faults come up again and again:
- Slipped or cracked slates and tiles — the single most common cause, and usually the cheapest to put right
- Failed flashing — around chimneys, abutments and dormers, where lead has split, lifted or been bodged with sealant
- Blocked parapet and valley gutters — the classic Victorian terrace problem; when they block, they overflow inwards, into the house
- Splits and failed upstands on flat roofs — covering that's blistered, cracked or pulled away at the edges (see our flat roofing page)
- Cracked flaunching and pointing on the chimney — water runs down inside the stack and shows up by the chimney breast (see chimney repairs)
Make Safe Today, Fix Properly After
If it's lashing down or the proper repair needs materials or access we don't have on the van, we'll make the roof watertight the same visit — a secure temporary cover or seal, not a tarpaulin left flapping for six months. Then you get a written quote for the permanent repair, and we'll always be straight about which is which. A make-safe is a make-safe, not a fix.
What a Roof Leak Repair Costs
It depends on what's causing the leak and how we get to it, but as a rough guide most straightforward leak repairs — a few slipped slates, a flashing repair, clearing and resealing a gutter outlet — come in at a few hundred pounds. You'll have a written quote before we start any work, there's no call-out charge, and if the problem turns out to be bigger than a repair we'll tell you straight and price the options. For the full range of what we fix, see our roof repairs page.