Lead Work & Flashing in Woking

Right now there's a brown ring spreading on the chimney breast, a musty smell in the back bedroom and a bucket you move every time it rains hard. Afterwards there's dressed lead at every junction, a dry wall that can finally be redecorated, and nothing to listen out for when the weather turns.

Wey Valley Roofing is family-run, fully insured with Public Liability Insurance, and Scott has spent more than 36 years on Surrey roofs; if you want a roofer in Woking who answers the phone himself, day, night or weekend, that's him.

Call 07428 300474 any time and a real person will pick up.

Lead work and flashing seals the joints where a roof meets something else: a chimney, a wall, a valley, a dormer cheek. Done properly in the right code of lead, it keeps water out for decades rather than seasons.

Lead Roofing Installation

Lead is still the material we reach for on the details that matter. It moves with the building, it takes a shape and holds it, and it lasts far longer than the sealants and mortar fillets we're often called out to replace. We've been fitting it on Surrey roofs for a long time, and the rules haven't changed much: right code, right bay length, right fixings, room to expand.

New leadwork goes in where a roof is being reslated, where a dormer or bay roof has come to the end of its life, or where a chimney has never had a proper apron and step flashing. On the older brick houses around Old Woking and the streets off Guildford Road, we still find sand and cement smeared over a joint that should have been dressed in lead thirty years ago. That's the sort of thing we put right once.

We work to Lead Sheet Association guidance on sizing, fixing and expansion, and to BS 5534 where the surrounding tiles or slates are being lifted and refixed. Nothing exotic in that, it just means the lead is cut and clipped so it can move without splitting.

Materials, Craftsmanship and Compliance in Woking

Milled lead sheet, the correct code for the job, dressed by hand on site. Code 4 for most flashings, heavier codes where a valley or a flat lead roof takes traffic and standing water. We don't substitute a cheaper self-adhesive tape and call it flashing. If you need lead work and flashing in Woking or lead work & flashing services Godalming, we cover the same ground with the same materials.

Victorian and Edwardian terraces

These are the houses with tall shared chimney stacks and party wall abutments, common through the older parts of town and up towards Horsell. Stacks like these need proper front aprons, soakers stepped into the brick courses, and a back gutter that actually drains. Cut the corners there and you'll be chasing a damp patch on a bedroom ceiling every winter.

Post-war and 1960s semis

Around Sheerwater and the estates off Albert Drive we see a lot of cement fillets at the wall abutment and thin, brittle flashing that's lifted out of the joint. It's usually a half-day detail, not a re-roof, and we'll tell you that plainly rather than quoting for a new roof you don't need.

Extensions, dormers and bay roofs

Flat lead on a bay or a small dormer top is a genuine craft job: welded corners, expansion joints, a proper drip at the front. We also check that the ventilation path behind it satisfies BS 5250, because a beautifully dressed lead roof over a damp, unvented deck still fails.

Request a Survey or Estimate and Lead Flashing Repairs

Most calls we take about leadwork are repairs rather than new installations. A stain appearing on a chimney breast, a drip at the back of an extension, a valley that overflows in heavy rain. The survey is free, there's no charge for the quote and no obligation attached to it. Where a stack is hard to see safely, we'll take a drone view so you can look at the same photographs we do.

Then you get a fixed price in writing. If a repair will hold, we say so. If the lead has been patched three times and is split along the fold, we say that too, and explain why replacing that bay is the cheaper choice over ten years.

Wondering how much of your house we'll be tramping through? Almost none of it: flashing work happens outside, on the roof or from a tower or scaffold, and nobody needs to be in your loft or your spare room. The van parks, the access goes up, the old lead comes off into a bag rather than onto your borders. Tools go on boards, offcuts go in the van, and the drive gets swept before we leave. There's noise when a cement fillet is cut out, and that part is honestly the worst of it, but it's short and it's outdoors. You can work from home through it, and most people do.

We take on lead work & flashing services too.

Lead Welding and Detailing

Lead welding, or lead burning, is how corners, gutters and pipe collars are joined without solder or mastic. It's the difference between a detail that holds and a detail that opens up in the first hard frost. Our own roofers do it, on our own jobs. We don't subcontract to strangers and hope, and that applies across all of our lead work & flashing services.

If you're looking for someone close to home in Woking to sort a chimney flashing, Scott usually answers the phone himself and can be out to look within a day or two, sooner if water is coming in.

• Welded angles and corners on lead flat roofs and dormers
• Lead-lined valleys, tapered and clipped to length
• Chimney aprons, stepped soakers, back gutters and cover flashings
• Pipe and vent collars welded and dressed
• Cement fillets removed and replaced with dressed lead
• Lead soakers reinstated during slate and tile repairs

Leadwork for Heritage and Listed Buildings

Older and listed properties are where lead earns its keep, and where the wrong detail shows immediately. We match existing patinas and bay lengths, reuse sound sheet where it's genuinely sound, and keep the profiles the building already has. Lead is fully recyclable, so the old sheet has a value that comes off the job rather than going in a skip.

On a listed building or one in a conservation area, consent can be needed before work starts, and the GOV.UK guidance on when building regulations approval is required is worth a look alongside your conservation officer. We're happy to talk to a surveyor or architect if one is already involved.

Whatever the building, the work carries our 25-year written workmanship guarantee, handed to you in writing before the team packs up. If something isn't right within those 25 years, we come back and put it right. That covers repairs as well as full replacements, which is the part people don't expect.