When your roof starts letting in water or tiles come loose, Cambridge Roofers carries out thorough, lasting repairs for homeowners in Godmanchester and the surrounding area.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
A roof repair is not simply swapping a broken tile or smearing on some sealant. A proper repair means identifying exactly where and why the problem started, fixing the root cause, and leaving the roof watertight and structurally sound. Quick fixes that treat only what is visible rarely last more than a season.
Common repairs include replacing cracked or slipped tiles and slates, re-bedding and repointing ridge tiles, repairing or replacing lead flashing around chimneys, skylights and dormers, re-laying damaged valleys, fixing felt underlay that has split or sagged, and re-sealing or replacing flat roof sections finished in felt or EPDM rubber. Each of these jobs has its own correct method, and cutting corners on any of them tends to create a second call-out further down the line.
This is the angle that matters most to a homeowner who has never had roofing work done before: what actually happens, in what order, and why each step counts. Here is a straightforward account of how a proper repair job progresses.
Before anything else, we get eyes on the whole roof, not just the spot that is obviously leaking. Water is deceptive. It enters at one point and travels along battens or felt before dripping through your ceiling somewhere entirely different. That is why a good roofer inspects the full roof surface, the ridge, the hips, the valleys, all the flashings, the verges and the guttering, not simply the area you pointed at from the garden.
We check the condition of tiles or slates - whether any are cracked, porous, slipped or missing. We look at the mortar bedding on ridge and hip tiles, which dries out and crumbles over time. We inspect every lead or felt flashing, because these are almost always the first things to fail. We look at the underlay where it is visible from the loft, checking for splits, sagging or wet patches. We note the condition of the battens. We also check for moss build-up that is holding moisture against the tiles.
Once we have inspected the roof, we explain what we found and why the problem has occurred. A ridge tile that has lifted is usually a mortar failure - the original lime mortar has carbonated and lost its grip, or modern cement pointing has cracked under thermal movement. A leaking chimney is almost never a chimney problem; it is nearly always flashing that has pulled away from the stack or step flashing that has corroded or been poorly installed. A damp patch on an upstairs ceiling in a corner of a room often points to a valley or hip detail, not the flat section above it.
Understanding the cause changes what the repair looks like. If we replace the flashing but leave a cracked tile nearby that is channelling water straight onto it, the new flashing will fail prematurely. We scope the repair to cover everything that contributed to the failure, not just the most visible part.
Roof work requires a proper safe working platform. For most two-storey homes this means roof ladders or a scaffold tower positioned on firm ground. Leaning a ladder against a gutter and working freehand is not acceptable practice on anything more than a very minor job at single-storey level. If the job needs scaffold, we tell you that at the outset, because scaffold hire affects the overall cost and the programme, and you deserve to know before we start.
Materials are gathered before work begins. For tile or slate repairs, matching the existing material matters. Old handmade clay tiles, reclaimed Welsh slate, concrete tiles in a discontinued profile - all of these require sourcing before the job starts. Turning up with the wrong replacement tile and fitting it anyway is a shortcut that creates a visual mismatch and sometimes a size mismatch that compromises weatherproofing.
The actual repair sequence depends on what we found, but the principle is always the same: strip back to sound material, prepare the substrate properly, and build back up correctly.
For tile or slate replacement, we lift the surrounding tiles carefully using a slate ripper or tile lifter, remove the damaged piece, check the batten and underlay beneath, and fix the new tile with the correct fixing - a nail, a clip or a hook depending on the tile type and roof pitch. Tiles on a roof below 22.5 degrees need additional fixing because wind uplift is greater at shallow pitches.
For ridge and hip repointing, the old mortar is raked out fully. Any cracked or loose ridge tiles are removed, bedded on fresh mortar and repointed with a mix that has some flexibility - a pure cement mix will crack again within a few years because it cannot accommodate the expansion and contraction of the tiles beneath it. Where ridge tiles are beyond re-use, we replace them.
For lead flashing, the method depends on the detail. Step flashing around a chimney is cut, dressed into the mortar joints of the brickwork, and secured with lead wedges before being pointed up. A continuous apron flashing is dressed to the profile of the tile below it. Where existing lead has cracked from work-hardening (a natural process over decades), we cut out and replace the affected section rather than patching over it. Patching lead rarely lasts more than a couple of winters.
For flat roof repairs in felt or EPDM rubber, we clean and dry the area thoroughly before any material is applied. EPDM patches are bonded with contact adhesive and a seam roller to ensure full adhesion at the edges. Felt repairs involve applying a compatible cap-sheet material with heat or adhesive, lapped correctly over the existing felt.
Once the repair is complete, we check it before coming down. On pitched roofs that means standing back and looking along the line of the tiles, checking that replacement pieces sit flush and are not proud or recessed, and that mortar joints are consistent. On flashings, we check the lap, the wedge fixing and the pointing. We also check the guttering directly below the repair area for debris that might block drainage.
If there is any doubt about whether a repair is sound - a section of felt underlay that looked borderline, a batten that was softer than we would like - we tell you rather than leave it undiscovered. You can then make an informed decision about whether to address it now or monitor it.
All broken tiles, old mortar, lead offcuts and packaging are cleared from the roof and from around the property. We do not leave a skip-load of debris at the base of your drainpipe. Broken tiles go into rubble sacks, lead offcuts are kept separate as they can be recycled. Drives and patios are swept. If we have worked over a border or a gravel area, we rake it back to how it was.
This sounds basic, but it matters. A clean finish is a sign that the rest of the job has been done with the same care.
Small repairs - replacing a handful of tiles, repointing a section of ridge or patching a small flat roof area - typically range from £150 to £400 depending on access, materials and how much preparatory work is needed. A full ridge re-bed and repoint on an average semi-detached house tends to cost between £400 and £900. Chimney flashing replacement, including lead and re-pointing of the stack joints, usually falls between £300 and £700. More extensive work - re-roofing a garage or re-laying a substantial flat roof section - will sit in the £600 to £2,000 range depending on size and material chosen.
These are honest typical figures for the current UK market. Your actual price depends on what your specific roof needs. Any roofer who quotes you a firm price without getting eyes on the job first is guessing, and guesses tend to change once the scaffold is up.
Before accepting a quote for roof work, it is worth asking a few straightforward questions. Ask what exactly will be done and why. Ask whether any adjacent areas will be checked as part of the job. Ask what materials will be used - specifically whether replacement tiles or slates will match the existing ones. Ask whether the access method is included in the price. Ask what happens if additional problems are found once work starts.
A roofer who can answer these clearly and in plain language is demonstrating that they understand the job. Vague answers or pressure to commit before a full inspection are warning signs.
As well as Godmanchester, we carry out roof repairs in Cambridge and the surrounding villages. If you are not sure whether we cover your area, call us and ask - we will tell you straight.
Roof repairs are what most homeowners need, but not always. If your roof is beyond economic repair - common when a concrete tile roof has reached 50 years or more and the nibs are failing across the whole slope - a full re-roof may be the better investment. We can advise on that honestly when we inspect. We also carry out new roof installations, flat roof replacements and chimney work. If you are looking for something not listed here, call us and describe what you need.
If you have a leak, a tile down, damaged flashing or anything else that does not look right on your roof, the straightforward next step is to call Cambridge Roofers and arrange for us to come and look at it properly. We will tell you what we find, what needs doing, why, and what it will cost - before any work starts.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
