Signs you need this
- A slate lying in the yard or a dark gap visible on the slope
- A damp patch on a bedroom ceiling that grows during heavy rain
- Staining down a chimney breast in an unused fireplace
- Mortar or grit washing out of the gutter after a storm
- Daylight through the roof when you stand in the loft
- A previous repair that was done with mastic and has now split
What a repair job actually involves
A repair starts with finding where water gets in, which is rarely obvious from the ground. Most Leeds terraces were built without any underlay. The slates were nailed straight to battens and the underside was torched with lime mortar and animal hair to block draughts. When that torching crumbles, wind driven rain blows up under the slate laps and lands on the ceiling below. The slates can look perfect from the street.
So we go up. Where the pitch and the access allow it we walk the slope. Where a terrace has no rear access, which is normal on a back to back, we work off a ladder at the front or fly a pole camera over the ridge. We also want a look in the loft with a torch, because wet rafters and rust streaks on nail heads tell you more than the roof covering does.
What we check before pricing anything
Every survey covers the same list: slate condition and nail fixings, the ridge and verge bedding, all flashings and soakers at the chimney and party wall, the valleys between back additions, the gutter line and the outlets, and the state of the battens where we can see them. On a stone slate roof we also look at the pegs and the spar holes, because stone slates fail at the fixing long before the stone itself wears out.
That list matters because a roof usually has more than one thing wrong with it. Pricing the slipped slate and ignoring the open flashing three metres away means you pay for access twice.
The materials we use
Lead for flashings, sized to code 4 for aprons, soakers and step flashings, and code 5 where a valley or a back gutter takes running water. Individual pieces get kept to about 1.5 metres so the lead can move with temperature instead of splitting at a fixing.
Nails are copper or aluminium alloy. Slate repairs use reclaimed Welsh slate matched for thickness and colour, and stone slate repairs use reclaimed Yorkshire stone sorted for size. Nothing gets bedded in cement where a mechanical fixing will do the job properly.
Leeds conditions that drive repairs
Our weather comes in from the west, and the rain that clears the Pennines arrives with the wind behind it. That combination finds the upwind side of every chimney stack, the open joint on a west facing gable and the shallow lap on a low pitched slope. Named storms through autumn and winter are when the phone rings hardest.
Frost does the slower damage. Water sitting in soft lime mortar on a ridge or a verge freezes and expands, and after enough cycles the bedding is sand. On terraces the shared valleys between rear outriggers fill with moss and leaf litter, hold water against the slate edge and rot the boards underneath.
How the work runs
- 1
Get on the roof
We use a ladder, a tower or a pole camera depending on access, and look at the whole slope rather than the one slate you rang about. Leaks travel, so the wet patch inside is rarely under the fault.
- 2
Photograph every fault
You get images of the flashing, the valley, the ridge and the slates, with a plain explanation of what has failed and how urgent it is.
- 3
Price the repair in writing
The quote separates the work that stops the leak from the work that can wait. If the roof is past repair we say so and price both options.
- 4
Fix it and clear up
Broken slates go in our van rather than your bin. We sweep the yard, the ginnel or the footpath before we leave and send photos of the finished repair.
What it typically costs
| Job | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Slipped slate repair Refixing a handful of slates on a terrace, ladder or tower access, scaffold excluded | £180 to £480 |
| Leak trace and make safe Locating the entry point and sheeting the slope so the water stops while a repair is priced | £150 to £350 |
| Flashing renewal, one abutment New code 4 lead let into a raked joint, replacing cement or mastic | £280 to £750 |
| Valley repair between two slopes Lifting slates either side and relaying a new lead or GRP valley, access charged separately | £450 to £1,200 |
| Loose or missing ridge tile Re-bedding individual tiles where the rest of the ridge line is sound | £160 to £420 |
| Storm damage callout Out of hours attendance to make the roof safe, offset against the repair if you go ahead | £120 to £250 |
Typical ranges for Leeds and the surrounding area , reviewed September 2026. Every quote is written and fixed before work starts.