We're roofers based on Chastilian Road, on the Dartford Heath side of town. Crayford is 1.3 miles away, about three minutes by road. So a slipped tile in Crayford is a short hop for us, not a day out. Most of the roofs we see here belong to one of two generations. First come the Vickers cottages at Barnes Cray, put up around 1915-16 for munitions workers and now about 110 years old. Then there are the semis that spread across Barnehurst from 1926, once the railway went electric. Each generation has its own weak spots, and we know where to look. The survey is free. The price comes in writing. And you'll hear straight from us whether the roof wants a repair or a replacement.
A roofer rings you back to arrange a visit.
Crayford sits low on the River Cray, with the marshes running north towards the Thames. When war broke out in 1914, Vickers needed homes for its munitions workers, and a War Office grant paid for a garden village at Barnes Cray. About 600 cottages went up in a deliberately varied mix of styles. The houses on Green Walk date from around 1915-16. The idea was variety, so neighbouring groups of cottages don't quite match, and neither do their roofs. Vickers sold the estate in 1927. Those roofs have now seen more than a century of weather, and plenty have been patched by several different hands along the way.
Next door, Barnehurst took off once its line was electrified in 1926. J W Ellingham built 578 semis there, priced at £600 each. W H Wedlock laid out roads named after the Lake District between 1926 and 1929, Lyndhurst Road and Risedale Road among them, and New Ideal Homesteads added the Barnehurst Park Estate. An interwar semi shares one roof with next door, split along the party wall. Add the 1982 Craymill housing co-op and later infill, and a single Crayford street can hold three ages of roof.
1,000+
Roofs repaired, renewed and rebuilt
10 yrs
Written guarantee on every re-roof
5★
The only rating anyone has left us
£0
For the survey and the written quote
Slipped tiles, cracked ridge mortar, tired flashing round a stack. We find the actual cause on Crayford roofs and fix that, with photos so you can see exactly what we saw.
Learn more about roof repairs in Crayford →
When the battens have gone soft or the old felt has turned to dust, patching stops making sense. A full strip and re-cover, priced item by item for your Crayford house.
Learn more about re-roofing in Crayford →
A century-old cottage stack takes a beating. Repointing, new flaunching, lead flashing and capping, or taking a redundant chimney down below the roofline when that's the sensible call.
Learn more about chimney repairs in Crayford →Old cottages, interwar pairs and a low river valley open to the marshes. So what does that mean once you're actually up on the roof?
Our base off Shepherds Lane is 1.3 miles from Crayford. That matters when a tile slips on a Friday afternoon. A short journey means we can get a cover over the hole or refix the tile before the next band of rain, rather than leaving you waiting for a gap in someone's diary. A wet loft gets worse by the hour.
The Barnes Cray cottages were built quickly, in wartime. Their timbers have moved since, and some rafters have been doubled up over the years. Walk on one of those roofs like a modern truss roof and tiles crack. We use crawl boards, check what's underneath, and lift only what we need to. Fewer cracked tiles, fewer odd patches.
On a Barnehurst semi, your roof and next door's meet on one line. If we're stripping your half, that join has to be finished so neither house leaks. We'll talk to the neighbour before we start, and tell you if the work touches the party wall enough to need formal notice under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Crayford is low and fairly open to the north, where the Cray heads out across the marshes. The nearest Met Office station, across the river at Stanford-le-Hope, averages just 577 mm of rain a year. That's about half the UK figure. So most leaks we trace here come down to wind and failed details, not sheer volume of water.
We don't knock on doors. A genuine roofer has no need to. If someone turns up in Crayford claiming they've spotted a loose tile from the road, say no and ring a firm you've picked yourself. We'll give a second opinion for nothing. Proper roofers don't mind you checking.
You can't easily see your own roof. So every survey comes with photos of the problems we found, and every finished job comes with photos of the repair. If the slipped tile turned out to be a rotten batten, you'll see the batten. It also means you have a record if you sell the house.
"Most Crayford call-outs we get after a blustery night come down to one lifted verge or a short run of ridge mortar, not a roof that's finished."
10
Years' cover on a new roof
1,000+
Roofing jobs finished
Paperwork in your hand on the last day. Not posted out "in due course".
Re-roof a house in Crayford with us and you get 10 years of cover on the workmanship. It's a written document. It has your address on it, lists what was done, and is dated the day the roof is signed off. If water gets in because something was fitted wrong - a batten, a fixing, a lap, a flashing - a roofer comes back and puts it right. You don't pay for that.
Why are we happy to promise ten years? Because of how the roof goes on. Every tile or slate is mechanically fixed to BS 5534, the current British Standard. Ridges and hips are fixed too, not just sat in mortar. A breathable membrane goes down first. Where a roof meets a wall, a chimney or the house next door, it gets proper lead or a tested dry system. Shortcuts there are what make a guarantee expensive, so we don't take them.
Tiles, slates and membranes also carry the maker's own warranty. Those vary by product, and your paperwork tells you which ones apply. If a job is too unusual to guarantee in the normal way, you'll hear that at quote stage.
We come out and look at the roof from the ground and, where it's safe, from a ladder or with a camera pole. On a Barnes Cray cottage we'll also ask to see the loft, because the timbers tell us more than the tiles do. Allow about half an hour.
You get a quote in writing that lists the work, the materials and the VAT. There's no single line that just reads roof works. If we think a repair will do, the quote says so and doesn't push a re-roof you don't need.
We agree a date around the forecast. If the job touches a shared roof or needs access across next door's garden, we speak to your neighbour first, so nobody finds a ladder against their fence without warning. It keeps the street friendly.
Scaffold or a tower goes up, depending on the job. For a quick tile refix on a single-storey back addition, ladders may be enough. Where a roof needs edge protection, it gets edge protection. We don't cut that corner, even on a one-hour job.
We strip back to the fault and fix the cause. That might mean new battens, a fresh run of underlay, ridge tiles reset on proper mortar or a mechanical fixing, or new lead where the old flashing has split. If we find something worse once the tiles are up, we stop and call you.
Before the scaffold comes down we go back into the loft with a torch. Daylight where there shouldn't be any, damp marks, sagging felt: we look for all of it and sort it while the access is still up.
Old tiles, broken mortar and offcuts go in the skip, not your borders. You get the finished photos, an invoice that matches the quote, and on a full re-roof the 10-year guarantee in writing. Then we're three minutes away if you ever need us again.
Crayford's parish church on Church Hill dates back to around 1100. It is one of only three churches in England built with twin naves, so the inside is split down the middle by a central arcade.
Learn more about St Paulinus Church on Google Maps
A small public garden in Crayford town centre where the River Cray runs between planted, reed-lined banks.
Learn more about Waterside Gardens on Google Maps
Open grassland and old trees on the site of Shenstone, a house built in the 1830s by the printing engineer Augustus Applegath. Crayford's council bought the estate in 1947 and pulled the house down, leaving the grounds as a public park.
Learn more about Shenstone Park on Google MapsEvery review left for us so far has been five stars. We're adding them here as they come in.
Reviews only tell you so much anyway. When a roofer comes out to Crayford, ask to see photos of a recent job on a house like yours. A good roofer will have plenty and won't mind you asking.
A small repair on a Barnes Cray cottage can cost more than the same repair on a newer house, because old tiles are hard to match and fragile timbers slow the work. A slipped-tile refix usually lands between £180 and £450. Rebedding or refixing a ridge runs £450 to £1,200. Re-roofing an interwar Barnehurst semi is typically £10,500 to £16,000, depending on scaffold, chimney work and the state of the timbers. Scaffold is often the biggest single line on a small job, so we'll say when a tower or ladder would do instead. It's all itemised.
Crayford is in the London Borough of Bexley, so Bexley Council is the planning authority, not Dartford. Replacing a roof like for like, so the house looks much the same from outside, usually needs no planning permission. It's different if your home sits in one of Crayford's conservation areas, Iron Mill Lane or Star Hill, or is listed. There, check with Bexley's planning team before changing materials. Building Regulations can still apply to a big re-roof even when planning permission doesn't. As a rough guide, re-covering more than half the roof normally needs a building control application, and we'll tell you if yours does.
Not automatically. Age alone doesn't condemn a roof. We look at the battens, the underlay if there is any, the fixings and the tiles themselves. Some cottages had their covering replaced at some point and still have years left. Others are on their last legs. We'll show you photos from the survey and tell you which camp yours falls into, along with what each option would cost. If repairs make sense, that's what we'll quote for. A sound roof deserves a repair bill, not a replacement one.
Wind does most of the damage we see here. A few miles east, the QEII Bridge has a set protocol for closing in strong crosswinds. It shut during Storm Eunice in February 2022, and again in Storms Henk, Isha and Jocelyn in January 2024. Gusts like those find any ridge sitting on weak mortar. A quick check after a named storm is cheap compared with repairing a stained ceiling. If you can see a gap along the ridge from the garden, don't wait for the next one.
Yes. Barnehurst borders Crayford and we cover Lyndhurst Road, Risedale Road, the Barnehurst Park Estate and the streets around them. Those interwar semis are getting on for a century old too, so similar problems turn up: tired battens, ridge tiles on crumbling mortar, chimney flashing that's been tarred over instead of replaced. The survey is free either way, and so is our opinion on whether anything needs doing yet.
Ring 01322 946667 or send the form. We're 1.3 miles away, the survey costs nothing, and you'll have a written price before anything is agreed.
