Roofers in Angus

Roofing in Angus

Along the Angus coast the giveaway is the pantile. Arbroath, Montrose and the older parts of Carnoustie carry orange clay pantiles on their fishertown cottages and back lanes, a Low Countries import that first arrived as ship ballast and then stayed. Inland at Forfar, Kirriemuir and Brechin the picture shifts to Old Red Sandstone terraces under Scots slate, and further up the Angus glens to farm steadings and estate cottages with long, low, wind-raked roofs.

Pantiles behave nothing like slate and need a roofer who knows the difference. They are single-lap, they were traditionally bedded with mortar torching over sarking, and they rely on their own weight and the pattern of the lap rather than on a nail through every unit. That works until an easterly comes off the North Sea and lifts the verge or the ridge, at which point a handful of tiles goes and the rest of the run loosens. On this coast the sensible specification is mechanical clipping at eaves, verges and ridge, dry-fixed rather than sand and cement, because salt-laden air chews through mortar bedding far faster than it does inland.

Salt is the other constant. It corrodes nails and screws, pits ungalvanised gutter brackets, and turns the cheap fixing choice into a false economy within a decade. The 45 firms listed across Angus average 4.5 stars from more than 300 reviews, but only six advertise emergency call-out, so if a winter storm strips tiles in Montrose you may be waiting a day or two. Insist that any temporary covering is properly sheeted and battened rather than a tarpaulin pinned to the sarking, because the second storm usually follows the first.