Roofers in Fife

Roofing in Fife

Turn off the A917 into Crail, Pittenweem or St Monans and you are looking at one of the most distinctive roofscapes in Britain: red clay pantiles, crow-stepped gables and harled walls, packed tight around small working harbours. The pantiles came into the East Neuk through the Low Countries trade, carried as ballast in ships that left with Fife coal and grain, and they have defined the coast ever since. They are also a specialist covering. Pantiles are single-lap tiles laid over sarking boards, traditionally torched underneath with lime mortar and hair, and they need a roofer who understands that system rather than one who treats them as interchangeable with a modern interlocking tile.

Fife's weather is the other half of the story, and it is unusual. Most of Britain takes its worst driving rain from the south-west. The Fife coast takes it from the east, off the North Sea, along with haar, salt and bitter winter easterlies. That means the exposed elevation on a Fife house is often the one a roofer from the west of Scotland would not think to check first, and it is why so many local problems appear at east-facing verges, skews and chimney flashings.

Away from the coast the county is more conventional: Victorian and Edwardian stone in Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline, extensive post-war and New Town housing at Glenrothes, and a large modern commuter belt.

Two practical points. Conservation area coverage in the East Neuk and St Andrews is dense, and pantile type, colour and skew detailing are frequently controlled, so check before ordering. And if you are told your pantile roof needs stripping, ask specifically whether the tiles themselves are sound and whether the sarking and torching, rather than the covering, are what has failed.