Roofing and driveways in London

Across London (SE1) it is mostly roof repairs and re-roofs on Victorian and Edwardian terraces, butterfly and valley roofs, flat roofs to rear extensions, and block paved or resin front gardens, plus the flat roofs, fascias, guttering and patios that go alongside all of it. London is a London borough, and two things come up more often here than anywhere else we work. Paving over a front garden needs a permeable surface, or drainage to a border or soakaway, unless the area is under five square metres. And conservation areas and Article 4 directions are widespread, which can mean the roof covering has to go back like for like and the chimney stacks have to stay. Both are worth checking before materials are ordered rather than after. Every job starts with somebody coming out and looking at it, then a free written estimate, rather than a price guessed over the phone.

No. London is about 47 miles from Brighton, which is still well inside the patch we cover between the Sussex coast and London. Travel is built into the written estimate rather than added on afterwards, and a job that distance gets booked as a proper run of days, so it is worth a call to talk through timings before anything is priced.

Yes. London is the other half of what we cover and the work there is nearly all terraced housing: valley and butterfly roofs, party wall flashings, rear extension flat roofs and front gardens turned into parking. Give us a ring and we will tell you what we normally find on roofs and drives around river, and what yours is likely to need before anything comes off.

It does, and London is a different job from a house with a drive and a garden round it. Most of the housing is terraced or semi detached Victorian, Edwardian or interwar property, which means valleys, party wall flashings and rear extension flat roofs are where the leaks are, and the chimney stacks are usually shared with next door and have to be dealt with as one. Access is the other half of it: narrow frontages, parked cars and shared alleys all decide how the scaffold goes up and what the job costs, so we look before we price rather than after. On the front, paving needs to be permeable or drained to a border, which is why resin bound and permeable block are the two we normally suggest.

Yes, and it is the reason a lot of people ring us rather than two separate outfits. Roofing and driveways are both done by the same team, so the scaffold, the skips and the muck away are organised once instead of twice, and there is one number to ring if anything needs sorting. On a house in London needing both, doing them together is normally cheaper and always quicker than booking them apart.

London is around 47 miles from Brighton, so getting out to measure and quote is quick. When we can actually start depends on the diary and, for roofing, on the weather, which is normally a few weeks out. We would rather give you a real date than a hopeful one, so ring and we will tell you where the next honest slot is.