Roofing in Kettering, priced in writing before anything starts.
Roofing in Kettering runs straight into the same two grades of Victorian building, and here the difference has a direct safety consequence.
The artisan housing was roofed in slate on timbers sized economically. That is fine while the covering stays as it was, and it becomes a genuine problem if somebody proposes to re-cover in concrete tile, which is substantially heavier than slate. On a roof that was marginal when built, that is not a theoretical concern. Anybody offering to re-cover an old Kettering slate roof in concrete without examining the structure first should be asked what they have checked.
On the larger houses the timbers are heavier and there is usually more margin, but the same question still gets asked rather than assumed.
Failures on both grades tend to be at the junctions rather than in the field of the roof: valleys where terraced runs meet, abutments where a rear addition joins the main roof, and chimney stacks, which on a terrace are shared, exposed on all sides and usually still carrying their original flaunching.
Re-covering triggers a Building Regulations requirement to look at insulation, and we arrange that inspection and see it through to sign off. In a conservation area the covering material is not a free choice. More on our roofing page.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the North Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our roofing page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Kettering street to the next.
Scaffold on a terraced frontage usually stands on the footway or carriageway, which is a licence from North Northamptonshire Council as highway authority, arranged by the scaffold company and needed before the tower goes up.
If scaffold is already up for a re-cover, dealing with a tired chimney stack at the same time costs a fraction of bringing scaffold back in three years for something that was visible on the first day.
We do not strip more roof in a day than we can make watertight again by the evening. On a continuous terrace that protects your neighbours as well as you.
If the honest answer to a re-cover is that the roof structure needs strengthening first, we say so and price that separately, so you can see exactly what you are paying for and decide whether the covering you wanted is still the right choice.
Part of our wider building work in Kettering.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
