Slate and tiled roofing across Cambridgeshire and Norfolk

Slate and tiled roofing covers the vast majority of pitched roofs across Wisbech, King's Lynn and the Fens, and each material fails in a different way and needs a different repair approach. Treating a slate roof like a concrete tile roof, or the other way round, is one of the more common mistakes we see corrected after somebody else has been up first.

Natural slate

Welsh and Spanish slate roofs on Victorian and Georgian properties can last a genuinely long time, but the fixing nails corrode over decades and let individual slates slip, even when the slate itself is perfectly sound. Repairing slate means matching the thickness and colour and refixing with a lead tingle rather than nailing through the face, which is why slate repairs need someone who has actually done it before, not just tiling experience carried over. See our slate roof repair page for the detail.

Concrete and clay tile

Concrete tiles are the most common covering on newer housing across the region and usually last well, but individual tiles crack from frost or impact and need replacing to match the existing profile and colour, since discontinued ranges can make an exact match difficult. Clay tiles behave more like slate, lighter and more brittle, and need the same careful handling. Our roof tile replacement page covers how we match tiles when a range has been discontinued.

Verges and eaves, where wind uplift is highest

The edges of a pitched roof, along the verge and at the eaves, are where wind uplift is at its strongest, and it is where tiles are most likely to slip or lift in a storm if not fixed correctly. Verge tiles need a proper mortar or dry verge system bedding them against the gable, and eaves tiles need the correct clip or nail fixing for their position. A roof that looks sound across the main field of tiles can still fail at the edges if this detail was rushed originally.

Ridge and hip detail

The ridge line is where most tiled roofs actually fail first, not the main field of tiles. Old mortar bedded ridges crack and fall away within a handful of years as the roof moves with temperature. We fit dry ridge systems as standard, mechanically fixed rather than mortar bedded, which move with the roof instead of cracking against it. See ridge tile repair for more on this.

Signs it needs looking at

• Slates or tiles visible on the ground after wind, even a single one
• Daylight visible through the roof from inside the loft
• Green or black staining spreading across the tiles, often moss taking hold in the gaps
• Cracked mortar visibly falling away from the ridge line
• A damp patch appearing on a ceiling below a valley or chimney

What you get

Every job, whether it is a single slipped slate or a full re-roof, carries our 10 year written workmanship guarantee and is covered by £1,000,000 public liability insurance. We inspect before we quote, always, photographing what we find so you can see it, not just take our word for it.

How long each material actually lasts

Natural slate, correctly fixed, can outlast the house it is on, well over a century in many cases, since the fixings fail long before the slate itself does. Concrete tile usually lasts several decades, and clay tile sits somewhere in between, more durable than concrete against frost but more brittle against impact. Knowing which material you have on your roof, and how it ages, is the difference between fixing the actual weak point and replacing something that had years left in it.

We identify the exact material and manufacturer before quoting, since a concrete tile that looks similar to another range can have a different fixing method or profile, and getting that detail wrong is a common reason a repair looks slightly off once finished.

Interlocking and plain tile roofs

Interlocking concrete tiles, the most common covering on newer housing, lock together along their edges and generally need fewer nails than a plain tile roof, which relies on double lapping smaller tiles to shed water. Plain tiled roofs, more common on older properties, need a different repair rhythm since a single replaced tile has to sit correctly within the lap pattern of the tiles above and below it, not just slot into a gap.

Areas we cover

Slate and tile work goes out across Wisbech, Cambridge, Ely, Bury St Edmunds and the rest of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, west Suffolk and south Lincolnshire. Moss building up on either material is a common companion issue, see our roof cleaning and moss removal page.