Roofers Heaton

Heaton roofing, the short version

Late Victorian and Edwardian villas behind high stone walls and heavy tree cover, with the woods and the Chellow reservoirs on the doorstep. Heaton is barely out of the city centre, so surveys and small jobs there get slotted in around bigger work on the same side of Bradford. The same short list of faults keeps coming back on Heaton roofs, and the useful part of a survey is knowing which of them is a morning's work and which means the covering has finally had its day.

What we take on for Heaton roofs

Roofers in Heaton: roofing and roof repairs across BD9

Heaton is the green end of BD9. The Heaton Estates conservation area covers the late Victorian and Edwardian villa streets - Heaton Grove, Park Drive, Carlton Drive, Parsons Road, Wilmer Road and Emm Lane among them - where big detached and semi-detached houses sit behind high stone walls and heavy planting. Roofs there were slate or clay tile originally, and the council's own appraisal points out that replacing them in concrete tile is one of the things spoiling the street scene. Around the conservation area are inter-war semis, and beyond those the old village at Highgate and the lanes out towards Chellow Dean.

Big villa roofs mean big details. Steep slate pitches with hips and long valleys, dormers and bays with their own small flat tops, tall stacks with several flues, and lead in quantity. When one of these leaks the cause is usually the lead rather than the slate: a valley that has been patched in bitumen, a soaker course replaced with mortar, or a dormer cheek flashing that was never dressed properly into the brick joint. The slate itself, on a good Welsh roof, is frequently still serviceable, and the sensible job is re-fixing with reclaimed slate rather than stripping a roof that has another fifty years in it.

Tree cover is the other local factor and it cuts both ways. Mature limes, beeches and sycamores shelter the houses from the worst of the wind, but they fill valleys and gutters every autumn, keep north-facing slopes permanently damp and green, and drop limbs onto roofs in a hard blow. Moss on a slate roof holds water against the laps and, on the lower pitches over bays and porches, that is enough to push water back under. A clear-out and a look at the valleys once a year on a house this size is not fussiness, it is the cheapest roofing you will ever buy.

We know these streets and we are careful on them - boards down on the drive, borders protected, scaffold set so it does not damage the walls or the planting. Survey and written quote cost nothing, and on a tall villa we will fly the drone so you see the ridge, the valleys and the stack tops properly. Slate re-fixing and re-covering in matched reclaimed material, lead valleys and dormer work, stack rebuilding and lime repointing, bay and porch roofs, cast iron gutter repair, and flat roofs on rear extensions. Fully insured, with a ten-year written workmanship guarantee. Call 0113 460 1042 when you want it looking at.

Heaton houses and the roofs they carry

Older stone property

Cottages and older stone property in Heaton were built to take weather off the tops and largely still do. When they want work it is re-fixing on new battens, sorting a valley out, or re-bedding a ridge, always in materials that match what came off.

Mill-era villas and conversions

The larger Victorian and Edwardian houses in Heaton carry steep slate, tall multi-flue stacks and long lead valleys, and most of the trouble is in the lead rather than the slate. Flashings done on the cheap a generation ago, cracked soakers and open stack joints account for most of the calls.

1930s semis and their hipped roofs

The 1930s semis in Heaton have reached the age where the covering, the cement-bedded ridges and the felt underneath all give out within a few years of one another. Where a repair is honest we quote the repair; where it is not, we say so and price the re-cover.

Detached houses with complicated roofs

Detached property in Heaton from the 1960s onwards is coming round for full re-roofs now. In the meantime it is extension flat roofs and conservatory junctions that were never flashed properly in the first place.

In Heaton that mostly means Heaton Grove, Emm Lane, Highgate and the lanes out towards Chellow Dean, and the streets running off them.

What we are called out to most in BD9

• 1930s coverings reaching the end all at once
• Cement-bedded ridges cracked the length of the run
• Gritstone slate split and crept after frost
• Gable copings and stacks wanting lime repointing
• Lead valleys and flashings behind tall stacks
• Nail sickness finally letting go on Victorian slate

If the roof is doing any of that, book a free survey or ring 0113 460 1042. We will tell you what needs doing and, just as plainly, what does not.

Why Heaton property owners use Bradford Roofing

• Bradford firm, Heaton on the round — The yard is in Bradford, not a call centre in another county. Whoever climbs up to survey the roof in Heaton is one of the people who comes back to do the work.
• Priced on paper, broken down — Every quote is written out and itemised, normally a day or so after the visit, so you can see what you are paying for and what has been left out on purpose.
• Drone up where a ladder tells you nothing — Steep gritstone pitches, tall multi-flue stacks and mill ranges get flown and photographed. You see exactly the same pictures we do before you decide anything.
• Insured, and guaranteed in writing — £5m public liability, £10m employer’s liability, and a ten-year written guarantee on the workmanship for all major work.
• Access settled before the price — Narrow back streets, shared ginnels, hillside plots and working yards. How the scaffold goes up is worked out at the survey, not argued about on the first morning.

Around Heaton

Working out of Bradford puts Heaton on the same round as Girlington (BD8), Manningham (BD8), Frizinghall, roofers in Allerton, Lidget Green and Bradford (BD1), along with everywhere else across the Bradford district and Leeds.