We're roofers based on the Dartford Heath side of town, about four minutes from Wilmington by car. That makes it the closest village we cover, and we're up on roofs here most weeks. The houses tend to be bigger than in Dartford proper. More semis with hipped ends, plenty of detached homes, dormers added over the years, extensions with their own little roofs tucked in behind. Every one of those joins is somewhere water can get in. A hip has two edges to fail. A valley takes the rain off two slopes at once. So when someone on Common Lane or Hawley Road rings about a damp patch, the leak is rarely right above the stain. We find it, show you a photo of it, and put a price in writing before anyone touches a tile. The survey costs you nothing.
A roofer rings you back to arrange a visit.
Wilmington parish is bigger than most people think. It covers about three square miles, running from Dartford's southern edge out past Leyton Cross almost to the A20, and it takes in Joyden's Wood as well as the old village. The 2021 Census counted 7,517 people in the parish. In the 19th century this was cherry orchard country. Then in the 1970s the A2 dual carriageway was driven straight through the middle, and you still notice the split driving from one half to the other. Both Wilmington Grammar Schools are here too, which anyone stuck on the school run already knows.
The oldest part is up on Church Hill. St Michael and All Angels has pre-Conquest origins and is one of eight Grade I buildings in Dartford borough, every one of them a medieval church. The streets around it make up the Church Hill conservation area, which the council appraised in March 1999. Away from there, the roofs we work on are a mix, and we won't pretend every road went up in the same decade. What they tend to share is size and shape. Hips, valleys, bay roofs, dormers, lean-to extensions. More roof per house than a Dartford terrace, and far more joints in it.
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 on a hip, a leaking valley, a crumbling mortar bed under the ridge. We trace the leak to where it really starts, price the fix in writing and leave the sound parts of the roof alone.
Learn more about roof repairs in Wilmington →
Once the battens are soft and the old felt has turned to dust, patching stops making sense. A full re-roof on a hipped house needs careful setting out at every corner, and we show you the old timbers before pricing new ones.
Learn more about re-roofing in Wilmington →
Dormer cheeks, valley linings, chimney flashings and the step flashing where an extension meets the house. Old lead splits along its folds. Lead held on with a tube of sealant, rather than wedged into the joint, fails sooner.
Learn more about leadwork in Wilmington →Bigger roofs reward patience. Here's what that means in practice on the houses we visit around the parish.
A valley carries the water from two slopes, and it silts up with leaves and moss. On larger Wilmington roofs a split lead lining or a cracked mortar valley is the leak we find most. It's also the one people guess wrong, because the stain often appears a metre or more away.
Fresh mortar smeared over a loose hip tile looks tidy for a season. Then the tile drops again. We lift the hip tiles, check the bed underneath and fix them back mechanically where the roof allows. It costs a bit more and it doesn't come back. Hip irons at the foot of each hip get checked at the same time, since a rusted one lets the whole line creep.
A dormer has a face, two cheeks and a roof of its own. Water gets in at the cheek flashings more than anywhere. We look at the whole thing, including the flat covering on top, before telling you what's wrong. Older dormers sometimes hide rotten timber behind the cladding, and we'd rather you heard that from us early.
If your house is in the Church Hill conservation area, you'll hear at the first visit whether the work changes how the roof looks. Like-for-like repairs normally don't. Swapping slate for concrete tile might, and so might a new dormer. Better to know before any scaffold arrives.
North Kent is dry. East Malling, the nearest inland Met Office station, averages 670 mm of rain a year against 1,163 mm for the UK as a whole. What finds the weak spots is rain driven sideways by a gale, so we look hardest at verges, ridges and anything exposed to the open fields of the Green Belt edge.
You can't easily climb up and check a ridge yourself. Nor should you have to take our word for it. Every survey comes with marked-up pictures of what we found, which you're welcome to show anyone else you ask to quote. A fair roofer won't mind being compared.
"The leak we're called out for in Wilmington is usually at a valley or a dormer cheek, and the stain indoors is rarely directly beneath it."
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 Wilmington 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 roughly what you've seen. A drip, a brown ring on the ceiling, a tile lying on the drive. We'll agree a time to come and look, and Saturdays are fine if you're at work all week. If water is coming through a light fitting, say so straight away.
Ladder or camera pole outside, a torch in the loft. On a hipped roof we follow every hip line and valley, not just the patch above the stain, because water can travel a long way along a batten before it drips. On a bigger house, allow an hour or so.
You get the price on paper. What's being done, which materials, whether scaffold is needed and what that costs on its own line. If the house falls inside the Church Hill conservation area, the quote says so and notes anything the council should see.
Many Wilmington repairs need a tower or short scaffold rather than a ladder, since a hipped roof has no gable wall to lean against. We arrange it, and we let the neighbours know if it's going up near their boundary. Scaffold costs appear on the quote, never as a surprise extra.
Tiles lifted, fault exposed, fault fixed with the right material. If opening up reveals something worse than the survey showed, we stop, photograph it and ring you before spending another penny of your money. Nothing gets added to the bill without your say-so.
Our debris out of the gutters, the drive swept, stray nails picked out of the lawn. Where it's safe to do so, we run water down the repaired valley or flashing and watch where it goes. Better to find a problem with a bucket than with the next storm.
You get before and after pictures and an invoice that matches the quote. On a re-roof, the guarantee comes in writing as well. If anything about the roof bothers you later, you have a record of exactly what was done.
Grade I listed church at the top of Church Hill, with origins that go back before the Norman Conquest. The churchyard keeps a number of large table tombs and memorials.
Learn more about St Michael and All Angels Church on Google Maps
Grassland, orchards and footpaths laid out in 1999 on part of the old Darenth Park Hospital site, between Wilmington and Darenth. The hospital opened in 1878 and closed in 1988.
Learn more about Darenth Country Park on Google Maps
National Trust property at Sutton-at-Hone, about three miles south of Wilmington. The 13th-century chapel was built for the Knights Hospitaller, and the River Darent loops round the garden as a moat.
Learn more about St John's Jerusalem 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 Wilmington, 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.
Two things push Wilmington prices above a Dartford terrace. Size is the obvious one: a detached re-roof usually lands somewhere from £14,000 to £24,000 or more, against £10,500 to £16,000 for a typical semi. Complexity is the other. Every hip, valley and dormer adds cutting, lead and hours. Small repairs stay small, though. Re-fixing a few slipped tiles is typically £180 to £450 and re-bedding a ridge £450 to £1,200. On a hipped roof, scaffold is often what swings the total.
Usually not, if the roof will look the same afterwards. Planning decisions here are made by Dartford Borough Council. Wilmington Parish Council is consulted on applications in the parish but doesn't decide them. The exception to watch is the Church Hill conservation area, where changing roof materials or adding a dormer can need consent, so we'd check with the council first. Building Regulations are a separate test. If more than half the roof, or more than a quarter of the building's whole outer surface, is being re-covered, a building control application is normally needed.
If the drip only appears when a gale blows from one direction, the fault is almost certainly on that side of the roof, where wind is lifting water under a tile edge or behind a flashing. Thames-side Kent gets roughly half the UK's average rainfall, so ordinary rain rarely finds the problem. Strong wind does. Make a note of the date and wind direction next time it happens. That narrows our search a lot and usually means a smaller bill. The QEII Bridge shut for storms Henk, Isha and Jocelyn in January 2024, and that's the strength of wind that exposes a loose verge.
Often, yes. A ladder needs something solid to rest against and a safe place to stand at the top. Hipped roofs don't give you a gable wall, and the hip lines themselves are steep and awkward to work along. For anything beyond the lowest courses, a tower or a small section of scaffold is the safe way to do it. We price access as its own line, so you can see what the repair costs and what the access costs. On a semi, a tower sometimes has to stand on next door's side, and we'll ask them politely for you.
Be wary of anyone who turns up uninvited pointing at your roof. Kent County Council's Trading Standards warns that doorstep criminals often offer bogus roofing and guttering repairs. After the February 2022 storms, the Kent Community Warden Service reported an elderly man charged over £3,000 for poor roof work, and its advice was simple: never assume, never believe, always confirm. Get two or three written quotes from roofers you contacted yourself, and never pay in full upfront. Kent's Trading Standards Checked scheme is a sensible place to start looking.
We're four minutes up the road. Ring 01322 946667 or fill in the form, and we'll come out, photograph the roof and put a price in writing. That part costs you nothing. If it turns out the roof doesn't need any work, you'll hear that from us too.
