Roofers in Cardiff

Roofing in Cardiff

Cardiff grew almost overnight. Between 1880 and 1910 the coal export boom threw up the vast bay-fronted terraced districts of Cathays, Roath, Canton, Splott and Grangetown, and because they were built fast, by the same builders, to the same pattern, they now share the same roofing problems on the same timetable. Welsh slate on the main pitch, decorative terracotta ridge cresting, a two-storey rear outrigger with a valley or box gutter running between it and next door's, and a chimney stack straddling the party wall. That shared geometry is the key to almost every Cardiff roof leak: the water coming through your back bedroom ceiling very often enters over the boundary, in a gutter neither household can see from the ground.

Cathays and Plasnewydd add a second wrinkle. Decades of student letting and HMO conversion have left a great many rear extensions and dormers with flat roofs that were done cheaply and are now well past their design life, and absentee ownership means they are patched rather than solved. If you are buying in these streets, get someone to look properly at the rear elevation, not just the front.

The city takes its weather from the south-west across the Severn estuary, so driven rain hits front elevations and chimney stacks hardest, and Cardiff's older stacks are frequently four or six flues wide with most of them redundant and unlined. Capping unused flues while retaining ventilation is one of the cheapest genuinely useful things you can do.

With 26 listed firms carrying more than 1,300 reviews between them, there is a decent evidence trail here. Use it, and when a shared valley or party stack is involved, talk to your neighbour before you talk to a roofer. Splitting a sensible joint repair is far cheaper than two separate patch-ups that fight each other.