Roofers in Tunbridge Wells

Tunbridge Wells has a higher proportion of Victorian and Edwardian housing than its neighbours, a good deal of it in conservation areas, and that changes what a roofing job looks like before anyone gets on a ladder. Natural slate is common and it is not interchangeable with concrete tile: it is thinner, lighter and laid to a different headlap, and a roof that has been patched with the wrong slate shows it from the street. The bigger difference is the sheer quantity of lead. Steep pitches meeting parapet walls, valleys between deep back additions, box gutters behind stone copings, dormers with lead cheeks, and chimney stacks that pass through the slope rather than sitting on the ridge. Every one of those is a lead detail, and lead is where these roofs leak. It is also where they get botched, because dressing lead properly is slow and mastic is fast. A fair amount of what Johnny is called to in TN1 and TN2 is not failed lead at all but good lead that was fitted in lengths too long to move, or bedded solid so it had nowhere to expand, and then cracked along a fold two winters later.