Roof Repairs in Ely

What we do here

Most people who call us in Ely have either found a stain on a ceiling or had something come off in the wind, and want to know how bad it is before they think about anything else. That is the right question, and it is the one we answer first. We come out, get up and look properly, and tell you whether you are dealing with a repair, a patch that will buy you a few years, or a roof that has genuinely reached the end. From our base at Dersingham we run down through King's Lynn on the A10, so Ely is a planned visit rather than a same-hour call-out, and we will be clear with you about timing when you ring.

Common roof repairs we carry out in Ely

• Slipped and cracked tiles: the most common job of all, and on the exposed Fen edge it is usually the fixings that have failed rather than the tile itself.
• Ridge and hip mortar: old lime bedding that has cracked and let water track down inside the roof, very common on the older gault brick property.
• Chimney flashings and flaunching: stacks here take the full run of the wind, and a stack that has moved slightly opens up every joint around it.
• Valley and parapet gutters: awkward details on the older houses near the cathedral, and a frequent source of leaks that look like they are coming from somewhere else.
• Storm damage: lifted verges and ridge tiles after a hard blow across open Fenland, where there is nothing upwind to slow it down.
• Flat roof patches: on the extensions and dormers added to the post-war housing out towards Littleport and the newer estates.

Local roofs in Ely

The city splits into two quite different jobs. Around the cathedral, the Gallery and down towards the river there is a lot of listed and conservation area property: gault brick, clay pantile, some slate, and Georgian fronts with much older structures behind them. On those, like-for-like repair is usually the right answer and sometimes the only permitted one. Out towards Littleport, Soham, Witchford and Haddenham the stock is newer and mostly concrete tile, where the work is more straightforward but the exposure is worse because there is even less shelter.

The Fen ground, and why it matters to your roof

This is the part that catches people out. Fen peat shrinks as it dries, and buildings sitting on it move more than they would almost anywhere else in the country. We regularly look at cracked haunching, opened ridge joints and chimney stacks slightly out of plumb in Ely, and a fair number of those are not roof faults at all, they are the ground telling you something. It matters because the fix is different. Repointing a stack that is still moving is money spent twice. If we think what you have is movement rather than wear, we will say so, even though it is not the answer that earns us the work.

Looking for something else? You can see everything we do as roofers in Ely, including our other services, the villages we cover nearby and recent work in the area.

Honest advice, and a written quote

We are a third-generation family firm, fully insured, and we do not work on commission or sales pressure. You get a free written quote setting out what needs doing and what it will cost, and if we think a repair will see you right for another ten years we will tell you that rather than push a re-roof. If the honest answer is that a local Ely or Cambridge firm can get to you faster on something small, we will tell you that too. For the full picture on what we take on, see our roof repairs page, and if you are nearer the Norfolk border we also cover Wisbech and King's Lynn. We work across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and the wider East of England.

Give us a ring or send a few details through and we will arrange a look at your roof.