Joyden's Wood is 333 acres of ancient woodland, and plenty of the houses on the estate back straight onto it. Lovely for most of the year. Then autumn arrives and the trees drop everything onto your roof. Leaves fill the gutters, slide down into the valleys and sit there wet all winter. Moss follows. In a gale, it's branches. We're roofers working out of west Dartford, about five minutes away, and most of the work we do here comes back to the trees in one way or another. Bungalow, semi or detached, the pattern barely changes. Clearing and fixing gutters. Lifting moss before it lifts the tiles. Repairing the damage when a limb comes down. The survey and written quote are free, and if a good clean is all your roof needs, that's what we'll tell you.
A roofer rings you back to arrange a visit.
Parts of the wood were sold off in 1884, and some of that land was built on in the 1930s. Houses now line roads like Summerhouse Drive, Birchwood Drive, Ferndell Avenue and Tile Kiln Lane, where St Barnabas Church stands. What's left of the wood is cared for by the Woodland Trust: 134.8 hectares of bluebells in spring, bomb craters from the Second World War, and the Faesten Dic, a Saxon earthwork roughly 1,500 years old. The 2021 Census put the population of the wider Joydens Wood area at 7,087. Walkers leave their cars on Summerhouse Drive, since the wood has no car park of its own.
The postcode catches people out. Lots of addresses here are DA5, a Bexley postcode, yet the estate is in Kent. It falls within Dartford borough and Wilmington parish, not the London Borough of Bexley. Estate agents list a good number of bungalows, and a bungalow puts a broad roof low down and close to the branches. Under the wood there's older history too. Deneholes, narrow shafts cut down into the chalk, numbered perhaps more than 100 here originally, and many have since collapsed. That's a matter for a surveyor rather than a roofer, but it says something about how long people have been digging into this patch of Kent.
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
Tiles cracked by a falling branch, valleys choked with leaf mould, flashings letting water in behind a sodden gutter. We find what's actually wrong, photograph it and price the repair in writing.
Learn more about roof repairs in Joyden's Wood →
Years of shade and damp moss can wear a roof out sooner than you'd expect. When tiles are flaking and the battens have gone soft, one full replacement beats another winter of patching.
Learn more about re-roofing in Joyden's Wood →
On a tree-lined plot the gutter is the hardest-working part of the roof. We clear, re-align and replace gutters, fascias and soffits, and fit guards only where they'll genuinely help.
Learn more about guttering, fascias & soffits in Joyden's Wood →A house backing onto ancient woodland needs a different kind of attention from one on an open street. This is where we put ours. Not every house by the wood has the same trouble, so we always look before we suggest anything.
A gutter full of wet leaves is heavy, and it spills down the wall instead of into the downpipe. We clear it by hand, flush the outlets and check the brackets haven't bent under the weight. Where a joint has started dripping, we reseal or replace it while we're up there.
Leaves slide off the slopes and come to rest in the valleys. Packed in there, they hold water against the lining and the mortar edges all winter long. Clearing a valley once a year is cheap. Re-lining a rotten one isn't. Homes right against the trees may need it doing every autumn.
We scrape moss off rather than pressure-washing, which can force water under the tiles and strip their surface. Then we bag up what we've removed, so it doesn't simply end up blocking your gutters instead. A moss killer can slow regrowth on a very shaded slope, and we'll say if it's worth it.
A limb landing across a roof can crack tiles, break the ridge or tear the felt. We check the whole area it hit, not just the obvious hole, and tell you plainly whether it's a straightforward repair or something worth taking to your insurer. Dated photos help either way.
We're roofers, not tree surgeons, and the trees behind some gardens belong to the wood rather than to you. Even so, we'll show you which branches are rubbing the tiles, or shading a slope so heavily that the moss never dries out. A tree surgeon can take it from there.
Low eaves make a bungalow roof look easy to reach, which tempts people up a ladder on a wet afternoon. Please don't. A leak here also means wet insulation right above the bedrooms. We work from safe access, check the whole roof while we're there, and keep a small job's price small.
"Most first calls we get from Joyden's Wood are about overflowing gutters, and there's often a blocked valley sitting just above the gutter as well."
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 Joyden's Wood 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.
Tell us what you've noticed. Water spilling over the gutter, a dark streak down the brickwork, a branch on the roof after a storm. A photo taken from the garden helps if you have one. So does knowing roughly how long the problem has been going on.
We start by walking round the house looking up, then get onto the roof safely to check gutters, valleys, flashings and tiles. Where branches overhang, we make a note of which ones are touching, and which will be touching after next summer's growth.
Inside, we look for daylight, damp felt and stained timber, especially under the valleys and along the eaves, where a blocked gutter can push water back up under the bottom row of tiles. Damp insulation gets pointed out too.
The price separates cleaning, repair and any replacement, with VAT shown, so you can decide what to do now and what can wait until spring. Photos of each problem come with it, marked up so you can see what we mean without climbing a ladder.
On a leafy roof we clear everything out before the repair starts, because faults hide under debris. Then broken tiles, split linings or damaged gutters are replaced with matching parts. All the waste leaves with us. Where a branch has torn the felt, that gets patched before the tiles go back on.
With gutters and valleys clear, we pour water in at the high end and watch it reach the downpipe. If it pools anywhere along the way, the fall gets adjusted before we pack up. Downpipes are rodded through if they're slow.
We tell you roughly how often your roof is likely to need clearing, judging by the trees around it and how much fell this year, and whether gutter guards are worth having on your house. Some homes need a yearly visit. Others really don't. We won't sign you up to a contract either way.
Woodland Trust ancient wood on Birchwood Road that gives the village its name. A marked trail follows Faesten Dic, a Saxon defensive bank about 1,500 years old, and bomb craters from the Second World War still dip the ground.
Learn more about Joyden's Wood on Google Maps
Around 240 acres of meadow and woodland along the River Cray, a short drive west at North Cray. The brick Five Arches bridge went up in the late 1770s and early 1780s, when Capability Brown was reworking the gardens of North Cray Place.
Learn more about Foots Cray Meadows on Google Maps
A narrow belt of ancient woodland running along the southern side of Joyden's Wood, looked after by Bexley Council. An old chalk mine inside the wood is used by hibernating bats.
Learn more about Chalk Wood 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 Joyden's Wood, 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.
Prices in Joyden's Wood are much the same as elsewhere around Dartford, with two local quirks. Tree debris adds clearing time to almost every job, and we show that openly rather than hiding it. Branch damage can also turn out bigger than it looks from the lawn. Re-fixing a few slipped or cracked tiles usually costs £180 to £450, and re-bedding a damaged ridge £450 to £1,200. A full re-roof on a bungalow depends heavily on its footprint, so we measure before we quote. Gutter clearing on its own is priced by the length of run.
Dartford Borough Council, in almost every case. The DA5 postcode makes people assume Bexley, but the estate is in Kent, inside Dartford borough and Wilmington parish. The wood itself straddles the boundary with the London Borough of Bexley, so if your house sits right at the edge, check your address on the council's planning map before applying for anything. For what it's worth, routine roof repairs and like-for-like re-roofing don't usually need planning permission at all. Building Regulations can still apply to a bigger re-roof. Woodland Trust land behind your fence doesn't change any of this.
Sometimes. Guards keep the big leaves out, but fine debris, seed cases and moss still get through, or build up on top of the mesh. On a very leafy roof they can turn a simple yearly clean into a fiddlier one. We'll look at the trees above your house and give you a straight view. If guards won't help, we'd rather tell you than sell them. Often a well-timed clean in late November, once most leaves are down, does more good.
Keep out of the rooms under the damage if a ceiling is sagging, and don't climb up yourself. Turn off the lights in that room if water is near a fitting. Take photos from the ground for your insurer. Then ring us on 01322 946667 and we'll make the roof safe and watertight before quoting for the permanent repair. If the tree belongs to the Woodland Trust or a neighbour, your insurer will want to know that as well. Be wary of anyone who knocks the next morning offering to fix it for cash.
A thin layer isn't a crisis. Thick moss is. It holds water against the tiles, lifts their edges and washes down into the gutters and valleys. Roofs in the shade of the wood stay damp longer after rain, so moss grows faster here than on an open street. We remove it by hand and clear the debris away, rather than jet-washing, which can do more harm than good. On most roofs here, every few years is enough. Shaded north slopes may want doing more often than the sunny side.
We're five minutes away. Call 01322 946667 or use the form, and we'll look at the roof, the gutters and the trees above them, then send you a written price. If a gutter clean is all it needs, that's all you'll pay for.
