Roofers in Aberdeenshire

Roofing in Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire builds in granite, and granite changes how a roof behaves. The county's farmhouses, steadings and small-town terraces are built of hard, dense, unforgiving stone that will not absorb or release moisture the way sandstone or rubble limestone does, so water shed badly by a roof has nowhere to go but through joints and into the interior. The traditional roof over that stone was Scots slate, laid in diminishing courses with the largest slates at the eaves, finished with cut stone skews and skewputts at the gables rather than a mortar verge. It is a beautiful system and a demanding one to repair.

The difficulty is supply. Scotland's slate quarries closed decades ago, and genuine Scots slate now comes almost entirely from salvage. Matching thickness, colour and coursing on a partial repair is skilled work and the material is expensive, which is why so many Aberdeenshire roofs have been recovered in Spanish or Welsh slate that never quite sits right on a granite gable. If you are repairing rather than replacing, ask specifically about salvaged Scots slate before accepting a substitute, and if you are replacing wholesale, choose the substitute with your eyes open.

Along the Moray Firth and Buchan coast at Banff, Macduff, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, exposure is severe: North Sea gales, salt, and a long cold season with real freeze-thaw cycling inland. Fixings and flashings age fast here.

One note on choosing a firm. The 67 listed contractors across the county carry an unusually large 3,658 reviews between them at an average of 4.3, noticeably lower than most Scottish counties in this directory. That volume is useful. Read the individual reviews rather than the headline score, because there is genuinely enough evidence here to tell the strong firms from the weak ones.