Roofers in Coalville and North West Leicestershire

Local knowledge

What kinds of roofs are there in Coalville?

Coalville has almost every common British roof type within a couple of miles of the town centre, because the town grew in three distinct waves — colliery terraces, interwar and postwar semis, and modern estates — and each wave was roofed differently. Knowing which one you live in tells you a lot about what your roof is likely to need.

Miners' terraces in Hugglescote and Ellistown

The Victorian and Edwardian terraces built for the pits were mostly slated originally, with shared brick chimney stacks and party walls that run up through the roof. Many have since been re-covered in concrete tiles. The weak points are the same on nearly every one: slipped or flaking slates, worn lead where the roof meets the chimney and the party wall, and back-addition roofs at a shallower pitch than the main slope, which is where leaks usually start.

Interwar and postwar semis in Greenhill, Thringstone and Whitwick

Semis built between the 1920s and the 1960s mostly have hipped roofs under concrete or clay tiles, a small bay-window roof at the front and a timber roofline that has often been over-clad or swapped for uPVC. Concrete tiles from that era are now 60 to 90 years old: they go porous, hold moss and shed their surface, and the mortar bedding on hips and ridges breaks up. This is the age of house where a full re-roof most often becomes the sensible option rather than another round of patching.

Modern estates towards Bardon and Agar Nook

Homes from the 1980s onwards use large-format interlocking concrete tiles with plastic rooflines, and the newest have dry-fix ridge and verge systems instead of mortar. Problems here tend to be small and specific — a cracked verge, a tile lifted by wind, a gutter blocked behind a plastic fascia, a leaking flat roof over a garage or porch — and are usually repairs rather than replacements.

Exposed ground below Bardon Hill

Coalville sits on higher ground on the edge of Charnwood Forest, directly beneath Bardon Hill, the highest point in Leicestershire. Roofs here take more wind-driven rain than those down in the Soar valley, so ridge and verge mortar fails sooner, north-facing slopes hold moss for longer, and a slipped tile lets water in faster. If your roof faces the hill, it is worth having it checked after any big storm.

Read more about the town on our Coalville roofers page, or go straight to roof repairs and roof replacement.