Roofers in Battersea
Lead-lined parapet gutters on the mansion blocks, Welsh slate butterfly roofs on the terraces between the commons: SW11 keeps two roofs that have almost nothing in common.
- Postcodes
- SW11
- Borough
- Wandsworth
- From our yard
- 3.5 mi
Roofs in SW11
Lead behind the parapet.
Prince of Wales Drive and the streets behind it are four- and five-storey mansion blocks in red brick: slate to the pitched sections, mastic asphalt to the flats, lead-lined gutters hidden behind the parapet. West and south, between Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common, the stock is two-storey Victorian terrace in yellow stock brick, Welsh slate over a butterfly roof. Shaftesbury Park is different again — the 1870s cottages there are gabled and pitched, with slate and banded brick.
What goes first on those blocks is the parapet gutter. Lead wants laying in short bays with a drip between each one so it can move; long sheets and thin codes split along the fixings within a few winters. Nobody sees it, because the parapet hides the gutter from the street. The first sign is a stain on a top-floor ceiling after heavy rain, or an outlet backing water over the upstand.
Access is what drives cost on a mansion block. Reaching a fifth-floor parapet means a full scaffold and a highway licence from Wandsworth, and the scaffold can cost more than the leadwork it carries. The roof is the freeholder's, so the instruction comes through a managing agent rather than the flat with the stain. Planning bites on the terraces instead. Inside the Shaftesbury Park, Park Town and Battersea Park conservation areas a dormer is out of permitted development altogether, and a change of covering on a front slope is the sort of thing Wandsworth will want to see matched to the neighbours. A flush rooflight is usually still permitted development unless an Article 4 direction covers the street.
What we do in Battersea
The five these roofs ask for.
Questions
What people ask
in Battersea
01Why does my Victorian terrace between the commons leak in the middle of the house?
Most of those terraces have a butterfly roof. Two slopes fall inwards to a central valley that runs the depth of the house, lined in lead or, later, zinc. The outlet sits at one end, usually through the front parapet. Once it silts up the valley holds water until it finds a lap, which is why the stain lands in the middle bedroom rather than near a wall.
02The roof over my mansion flat leaks. Do I arrange the repair or does the freeholder?
In a Battersea mansion block the roof, the parapet gutter and the rainwater pipes are normally retained by the freeholder, so the managing agent instructs the work and recovers it through the service charge. Leaseholders get consulted once a job passes the statutory threshold. What speeds it up is a written survey of the gutter run, with photographs taken from the parapet, that the agent can act on.
03Can I put a rear dormer on a butterfly roof terrace in Battersea?
Plenty of the streets between the commons have them already, so the form is established. On a butterfly roof it is more work than it looks: the rear slope comes off, the central valley has to be re-terminated into the new structure, and the flank parapets usually need building up. Where the street is in a conservation area, permitted development for roof enlargement is removed, so the dormer becomes a full application.
04Water is coming in at the terrace door of my riverside flat. Is that a roof problem?
Usually it is the deck rather than the roof above. On the Nine Elms and Power Station blocks the terrace is a warm deck — insulation, then a membrane, then paving slabs on pedestals, drained through outlets you cannot see. A blocked outlet, or a threshold upstand set low to keep the doors level, lets water track over the edge of the membrane. Newer blocks may still hold a structural warranty, so tell the managing agent before anyone lifts slabs.
05Do you cover Battersea?
Yes. Battersea is about 3.5 miles from our yard in Camberwell, and SW11 is inside the area we quote in.
06How quickly can you get to Battersea?
For an active leak we aim for the same day — the call-out line runs 24 hours. For a survey we are usually with you within a few days.
07Do you charge to come and look?
No. The survey and the written quote are free, and there is no call-out fee for pricing a job anywhere in Battersea.
08Can I see work you have done nearby?
Every review on Checkatrade carries the postcode district of the job, so you can see the areas we work in and read what those customers said. Ask when you ring and we will send photographs of a roof like yours.
Free quote
Get a price for your roof.
We will come out, photograph what we find and give you a fixed price in writing. No call-out fee and no obligation.