Roofers in South Ayrshire

Roofing in South Ayrshire

Ayr, Prestwick and the coast running down to Girvan sit square in the path of the prevailing south-westerly, with nothing between them and the Atlantic but the Firth of Clyde and the bulk of Arran. Salt spray carries well inland on a winter gale, and it is the reason rainwater goods, nails, screws and gutter brackets here tend to fail long before the roof covering does.

The stock is more varied than the seafront suggests. Ayr has a Georgian and Victorian core in red sandstone under slate, with a substantial conservation area; Alloway holds Burns Cottage, one of the very few surviving thatched clay-and-turf cottages in the west of Scotland; Prestwick is largely interwar and post-war bungalows and villas with clay or concrete tiles and generous hipped roofs; and Maybole and Girvan are older, more exposed and further from most contractors' bases.

Flat roofing is the second most commonly listed service among the 25 firms here, which fits an area carrying a lot of interwar and later flat-roofed extensions, dormers and garages. If yours is still on its original felt, the honest answer is usually a strip and re-cover rather than another layer over the top, because overlaying traps moisture in the insulation and buys a few years at the cost of the deck. For pitched work near the shore, ask for stainless or copper fixings and mechanically fixed ridges and verges as standard rather than as a chargeable extra, since a mortar-bedded ridge on the Ayrshire coast is a maintenance liability from the day it is laid.