Roof repairs and new roofs in Brighton

What usually goes wrong here

• Slates slip because the nails have gone

  A slate is nailed to a batten. The slate can be perfectly sound after a hundred years while the nail rusts to nothing. Then one slate slides down the roof on a windy night and the one under it is exposed. Roofers call it nail sickness. It is why slates go one at a time instead of all together.

• The gutter is in the middle of the roof

  That hidden valley is the part that causes the trouble. Leaves, grit and old mortar collect in it. The lead underneath is often as old as the house. There is nowhere else for the water to go. When it backs up it comes in over the bedroom ceilings. The wet patch is often a good way from the actual fault, because the water runs along a rafter first.

• Paint and mortar go first on the sea side

  Walk along a terrace and the front and the back weather differently. The side facing the wind off the sea loses its paint sooner. The mortar in the parapet and the chimney goes soft and sandy. Painting the outside is not a cosmetic job on these houses. It is what keeps the water out of the render.

• Flat roofs on the back of the house

  Most of these terraces have something flat on them somewhere. A back addition, a dormer cut into the slope, a small balcony or a bay top. They give up first, because they hold water instead of shedding it. They are also the parts nobody can see from the street.

• Getting up there is half the job

  The streets are narrow, the houses have no front garden, and the terrace runs on both sides. There is often nowhere to stand a ladder safely. Access is worth talking about before anyone quotes, because it changes how the work has to be done.