Roof Surveys and Inspections in South London

Not for the survey that comes before a quote. That one is free, there is no call-out fee for pricing work, and you keep the photographs whether or not you book anything. A written condition report is a different job — one you commission on its own for a purchase, a letting or a budget — and it carries a fee because of the time it takes to inspect properly and write up.

A larger or more complicated roof costs more to report on than a normal terraced or semi-detached house, and a converted house or small block is priced per building. Beyond that, what moves the fee is access, how much of the roof can genuinely be reached, and how detailed the report needs to be — a photo set with a summary costs less than a schedule of every element with costed remedial work against each one.

A RICS home survey is a whole-house report and the roof is one section of it. The surveyor inspects from the ground, from a window and from the loft hatch, usually with binoculars, and does not put a ladder up or walk the roof. It is a sound report within that scope, and the scope stops at the gutter. A roofing inspection goes up and looks at the covering, the fixings, the flashings and the valleys at arm's length, which is the only way anyone can tell you whether the roof has five years left or twenty-five.

It means the surveyor could see enough to be concerned and not enough to be specific — usually slipped or delaminating slates, a valley they could not see into, or a chimney they could not get near. It is a standard sentence, not a verdict. An inspection turns it into a list: what has failed, what has not, what putting it right would cost and whether any of it is urgent. On a purchase that figure is often worth negotiating with, and occasionally it is worth walking away from.

Partly, and we will tell you which parts. From a ladder at eaves level, from inside the roof space and from a neighbouring vantage point, most of a normal two-storey roof can be read reliably. A third storey, a butterfly roof behind a parapet or a mansion-block roof usually needs a tower, a scaffold or a lift to be inspected properly. Where that is the case we say so and price it, rather than writing a report on a roof we have only squinted at from the pavement.

A drone earns its place on roofs nobody can safely reach — high parapet gutters, church and block roofs, awkward valleys — and the photographs are genuinely useful. What it cannot do is lift a slate, press a deck or feel whether a tile is still held by its nail, and those are the checks that separate a roof with a problem from a roof at the end of its life. Anyone flying commercially in the UK needs a CAA operator ID and the right flyer credentials, so ask to see them from whoever offers you one. Where a drone is the right tool for your roof, we will say so at the survey.

An hour or two on site for a typical house, longer where there is a lot of roof or a run of parapets and valleys to work through. A written report normally follows within two to three working days, and faster where you are up against an exchange date. The free pre-quote survey is quicker: we generally talk you through the findings on the day and send the written quote shortly after.

No, and it is the right question to ask every roofer who climbs onto your roof. Most of what we survey needs a repair. The honest test is how much of a slope has failed rather than how old the covering is: scattered slipped slates over sound battens is a repair, while nail fatigue and perished felt across a whole slope is not. We hand over the photographs the judgement rests on, so you can weigh it yourself or take it to somebody else.

Every couple of years suits a house in normal condition, plus a look after any storm that has taken tiles off roofs in the street. Anything with a valley or a parapet gutter is worth checking each autumn, because a blocked one holds water above your ceiling instead of shedding it off the edge. Flat roofs want an annual look once they are past ten years old, which is when felt turns brittle and laps start to open.

Camberwell SE5 is the base and more of our work is within a few miles of it than anywhere else — Peckham, Dulwich, East Dulwich, Herne Hill, Brixton, Brockley, West Norwood, Clapham, Streatham, Tooting, Balham, Wandsworth and Battersea. We also survey across Putney, Fulham, Wimbledon, Kingston and New Malden, and travel further for larger jobs.