Skip to content
Alex Shepherd Roofing
Roofing service

Roof slating and slate roof repairs

Most of the housing round here is under slate, and there are two very different kinds of it. Getting them mixed up is how roofs get ruined.

Covering
East Lancashire & Craven
Quotes
Free, no pressure
Ring or text
07840 031508

The two slates round here

Welsh blue slate
covers most of the Victorian terraces across Nelson, Colne, Burnley and Barnoldswick. Thin, light, uniform, laid in even courses. A good blue slate roof will run well past a hundred years.
Yorkshire stone slate
is what you find on older and higher property, and over into Craven around Skipton. It's sandstone, not slate at all, laid in diminishing courses with the biggest at the eaves. It's heavy, and that weight changes everything about how the roof has to be built underneath.

What we do

  • Replacing individual slipped, cracked or missing slates
  • Patch re-slating where one area has failed
  • Full strip and re-slate, in reclaimed or new slate
  • Re-slating in salvaged stone slate, including sorting and grading by size
  • New battens, breathable membrane and re-fixing
  • Ridge, hip and verge work
  • Valleys and abutment detailing in lead

Why slate roofs fail

Slate itself lasts a very long time. What fails is everything around it.

Nail fatigue.
The slates are sound but the nails have rusted through, so slates start slipping one at a time for no obvious reason. Once it happens across a whole roof, patching becomes a losing battle.
Battens.
A hundred years of damp and the timber the slates are nailed to gives up.
Previous repairs.
Cement fillets, mortar smeared into valleys, mastic where lead should be. All of it traps water rather than shedding it.
Torching.
Older roofs were lined underneath with lime mortar and hair. When it crumbles you get draughts, dust and water getting past.

Stone slate has one more. The roof was built to carry that weight when the timbers were new. If somebody's replaced stone slate with something else, or the rafters have moved, the whole thing needs looking at structurally and not just re-covering.

Repair or re-slate?

The test is nail fatigue. Sound nails and firm battens mean repair it. Nails coming away as rust mean the roof is near the end regardless of how good the slates look.

We'll lift slates and let you see for yourself.

Common questions

The things people ask us

Usually on Welsh blue slate. Stone slate is harder and depends what's available salvaged. We'll tell you before you commit whether the patch will show.

Yes. A breathable membrane under new battens is standard now and worth doing whenever a roof comes off. It's the cheapest part of the job and the one you can't add later.

Good reclaimed Welsh slate is excellent, and it matches an existing roof in a way new slate won't. The thing to check is that it's been sorted properly and that the slates aren't delaminating at the edges.

Yes, and on a terrace it's common, because the front and back often wear differently. The join needs detailing properly at the ridge.

Reviews

What people said about the work

Read the reviews, then ring us and see if we match up.

Read all reviews
07840 031508WhatsAppFree quote