Pitched Roofing in Godalming

A pitched roof that has been put right properly gives you back a dry loft, a clean ceiling and tiles that sit flat and stay where they were fixed, through the next wet winter and the ones after it.

Wey Valley Roofing is family-run, with founder Scott bringing more than 36 years on Surrey roofs and answering the phone himself, and our roofer services Godalming customers rely on are carried out by our own local roofers, never subcontracted.

Call 07428 300474 any time for a free survey and a fixed price in writing.

Whether a pitched roof needs repair or replacement comes down to how much of the roof is still doing its job: if the tiles are sound and the failure is local, a repair is the honest answer, and if the battens and underlay have gone, patching only buys a season.

Pitched Roof Repairs

Most pitched roof leaks in Godalming start small. A slipped slate on a Victorian semi, two cracked concrete tiles on a 1960s estate roof, a nail-sick batten letting a course drop by half an inch. Water finds the gap, runs down the underlay and shows up on a bedroom ceiling three feet from where it actually got in.

Repairs are done by our own roofers, working from the top down: lift the surrounding tiles, check the batten and underlay beneath, replace what has failed, then re-lay and re-fix to BS 5534 so the new work holds in wind uplift rather than relying on gravity. On the town's older stock, the underlay is often bitumen felt that has gone brittle at the laps, and there is no point setting a good tile back onto a torn sheet.

• Slipped, cracked and delaminated slates replaced individually
• Nail-sick battens cut out and renewed in the affected area
• Localised underlay repair where the tear is behind the leak
• Tile clips and mechanical fixings where exposure demands them

If a repair will hold, we say so. We do not sell a roof to fix a tile.

Ridge, Hip and Verge Repairs for Godalming Homes

Ridge and hip tiles on the Victorian and Edwardian houses on the south side of town, between the bypass and Holloway Hill, are usually bedded in sand and cement laid decades ago. That mortar shrinks, cracks along the joint line and eventually lets a ridge tile rock underfoot. Verges go the same way, the cement undercloak crumbling off the gable until the end tiles have nothing holding them down.

Re-bedding is the fix, not repointing over a failed bed. The old mortar comes off, the tile is cleaned, and it goes back on a fresh bed with mechanical fixing, or onto a dry ridge system where the roof pitch and tile profile suit it. Dry verge units are often the sensible answer on the later estate roofs in Binscombe or Aarons Hill, where the original cement verges have already been patched twice. Our pitched roofing services cover ridge, hip and verge work as its own job, not only as part of a re-roof.

A rocking ridge tile is a two-day job, not a roof.

Materials and Matching Existing Roofs in Godalming

Godalming has Georgian and period stock near the compact centre, Victorian and Edwardian houses spreading south, and estates built between 1950 and 1980 in Binscombe, South Hill, Farncombe Hill, Bargate Wood and Aarons Hill. That means natural slate, handmade and machine-made clay plain tiles, and later concrete interlocking tiles, sometimes three of them within one street.

Matching matters most on the front elevation and on anything visible from the green space around the River Wey, where the parkland and the Grade I listed church put roofs in plain view. Where a discontinued concrete tile cannot be sourced, the usual route is to take sound tiles from a rear slope for the front and put the closest available match at the back. Sizes, gauge and headlap all have to work together, or the new tiles sit proud of the old.

Whether you need pitched roofing in Godalming or pitched roofing in Guildford, we work across the same stock of local roof types and source to suit what is already up there.

Lead Flashing and Valleys

Lead is where a lot of pitched roofs let go, and it is rarely the lead itself. Abutment flashings on the Victorian terraces are often too short in the upstand, wedged into a raked joint that has since lost its pointing. Valleys fail at the laps when the sheet was laid too long, so thermal movement splits it at the fixings instead of letting it move.

We work to Lead Sheet Association guidance on code, sizing and lap lengths, and cut new chases where the old flashing was simply mortared onto brickwork. Valleys are relined with drips at the correct centres so the sheet can move. Where a chimney is involved, front apron, side soakers and back gutter are formed separately, because a single dressed piece around a stack will crack at the corner.

• Stepped and raked cover flashings to abutments and parapets
• Valley gutters relined with correct code lead and lap spacing
• Soakers, aprons and back gutters formed to chimney stacks
• Rainwater outlets sized to BS EN 12056 where gutters are renewed

Roof Surveys and Leak Detection

A leak stain on a ceiling tells you almost nothing about where the water entered. On a low-lying property near the River Wey towpath, driven rain and splashback at low eaves can push water back under a course, and the entry point can sit a metre uphill of the damp patch. So the survey starts at the roof, not the ceiling.

Call and first questions

Scott answers the phone, day, night or weekend. He asks when it leaks, how heavy the rain has to be and whether it stops afterwards, because a leak that only shows in wind-driven rain points at flashings, and one that runs after every shower usually points at the covering.

Survey on site

The roof is inspected properly, including a drone view where the pitch or a tight terrace makes access awkward. Underlay condition, batten fixings, ridge bedding, flashing upstands and valley laps all get looked at, along with ventilation, because condensation under a cold roof is often mistaken for a leak. BS 5250 covers that side of it.

Fixed price in writing

You get an honest fixed price in writing, at no charge and with no obligation, setting out what is being done and what is being left alone. If the smaller repair is the right answer, that is what is quoted.

Work and handover

The same roofers who quoted it do the work. Site is left tidy, and the 25-year written workmanship guarantee is handed over before the team leaves. If something is not right inside those 25 years, we come back.

Pitched Roof Installation

A full re-roof strips back to the rafters, and that is when you find out what the roof is really made of: undersized battens, no underlay at all on the oldest Godalming properties, or a 1970s roof where the felt was laid without any support at the eaves. Rafters get checked for sag and for notching before anything new goes on.

New work is breather membrane or supported underlay, treated battens at the correct gauge for the tile, mechanical fixing to BS 5534 for the exposure on that street, and eaves and ridge ventilation set out so the void stays dry. Under Approved Document L, a re-roof of more than half of the roof brings insulation into scope, and that is priced and explained at quote stage rather than raised halfway through the job. Scaffold, skip position and access are agreed before the first tile comes off.

Done once, done properly, with the guarantee in writing.

Common Questions About Pitched Roofing in Godalming