Roof leak detection & repair in Macclesfield
Water almost never comes in directly above where it shows. It gets through a defect, runs along the top of a batten, down a rafter and across a ceiling joist, and drops through the plaster at the first low point it finds. A stain in the middle of a bedroom ceiling routinely traces back to a flashing three metres away at the other end of the roof.
So a leak is a diagnosis job before it is a repair job. It means looking in the loft with the light off to find daylight and water tracks, following the staining back up the timbers, checking the obvious suspects in order — flashings, valleys, the chimney, the abutments — and only then getting on the roof.
Not every wet patch is a leak, either. Condensation in a poorly ventilated loft produces exactly the same symptoms — damp insulation, black mould on the sarking, water dripping off nail points on a cold morning — and re-covering the roof will not fix a single bit of it. Telling the two apart is the difference between a hundred-pound vent and a five-figure re-roof.
One local note worth being straight about: Cheshire East's flood risk assessment names Macclesfield as the borough's only designated Flood Risk Area, with 47 internal flooding incidents recorded since 2011 — more than any other town in the borough. A good share of what people report as a roof leak in the streets around the culverted watercourses turns out to be groundwater or an overwhelmed drain, and it is worth ruling that out before anybody starts pricing roof work.
Roof leaks & damp — every job, in detail.
5 jobs in this category. Each has its own page explaining what's involved, what your roofer checks and — just as importantly — when a job can safely wait.
Roof leak detection
Water gets in at a defect, runs along timbers and drops through the ceiling somewhere else entirely — so finding the entry point is a proper diagnostic job rather than a look at the stain. It starts in the loft, follows the water back to its highest point, and only then goes on the roof.
Read more →Water stain on a ceiling
A stain on a ceiling means water has been sitting in the structure above it, and the useful questions are where it came in, whether it is still active, and whether the plasterboard is sound. Painting over it without answering those simply hides the evidence.
Read more →Loft condensation & damp
A damp loft with no leak is a ventilation problem: warm moist air rises out of the house, hits the cold underside of the roof and condenses there. It is extremely common in a house that has had its loft insulation upgraded, and no amount of work to the covering will fix a single bit of it.
Read more →Leaking roof valley
A valley carries the water off two roof slopes at once, so when it fails the volume is significant and the damage is quick. Most valley leaks come down to a split in the lead, a valley that is too narrow for the water it takes, or one packed with moss and debris.
Read more →Damp on a chimney breast
Damp on a chimney breast has three usual causes: water coming down the stack because the flaunching or pointing has failed, water coming in at the flashing where the stack meets the roof, or a disused flue sweating from the inside because it was capped without being ventilated.
Read more →Not sure which one you need?
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