Bridgend is really two roofing towns wearing one name. There is the older centre and the surrounding villages, built in stone and roofed in Welsh slate. And there are the large postwar and later estates — Brackla chief among them — built quickly, in one push, in concrete interlocking tile.
Those two kinds of roof fail in genuinely different ways, and the same storm will do different things to them. T & T Roofing South Wales repairs storm damage across Bridgend and the surrounding area, and knowing which of the two you own is the fastest route to understanding what has happened to it.
Below is what we are most often called to in Bridgend, roughly in the order it comes up. If what has happened to your roof is not on the list, call anyway — it is not an exhaustive list, it is the common ground.
On an older slate roof, the covering usually outlives the nails. The slate is still perfectly serviceable when the fixings holding it have corroded to the point of letting go, so failure arrives as slates sliding out of position with nothing visibly wrong with them.
On a concrete interlocking tile roof the opposite tends to be true. The fixings and the tile itself are robust, but interlocking tiles rely on each other. They are laid so that neighbours overlap and restrain one another, and typically only the perimeter tiles and every few courses are mechanically fixed. Disturb one tile in the field of the roof and the ones around it lose part of their restraint.
Estates like Brackla present a particular pattern, and it is worth being plain about it. When a large number of houses are built at the same time to the same specification, their roofs reach the same point in their life at the same time. Mortar-bedded ridges laid in the 1970s and 1980s are now decades old across whole streets.
This means storm damage on those estates often is not random bad luck. It is a batch of roofs arriving together at the age where the ridge mortar has cracked its bond and a strong enough wind will find it. If neighbouring houses have had ridge work done recently, that is useful information, not a coincidence.
A practical consequence. If your ridge has moved and three houses on the street have had the same problem this year, a repair that re-beds only the section that failed may be a false economy. It is worth asking us to assess the full length of the ridge while we are there, so you can make that decision knowingly rather than find out next winter.
Wind lifts tiles at edges: the eaves, the verge along the gable, the ridge, and around any interruption in the roof such as a chimney, a dormer or a rooflight. On an interlocking tile roof, one displaced tile in an exposed position often takes several more with it as the wind works into the gap it left.
Where the surrounding roof is in reasonable condition, a targeted repair restoring the missing tiles and the fixings around them is the right work. We check the area around the gap rather than just filling it, because the tiles that have been loosened but not yet removed are the ones that go in the next storm.
Bridgend sits where the Ogmore, Llynfi and Garw valleys come together, and rainfall running off high ground reaches the town in volume. On a roof, volume tests things that ordinary rain does not: valley gutters between roof planes, the capacity of guttering and downpipes, and how well the roof sheds water at its junctions.
A leak that only appears in heavy rain, and stops in ordinary rain, often points to a capacity problem rather than a hole. Water backing up in a blocked valley or an overwhelmed gutter can be pushed up under the covering, which is a very different repair from replacing a broken tile.
Newer Bridgend housing is more likely to have dry-ridge and dry-verge systems: mechanically fixed components rather than mortar. These perform well, but they are systems with parts, and storms damage parts. Clips break, unions crack, end caps detach and sections work loose.
A damaged dry-fix system is usually repairable by replacing the affected components, provided the system is identified correctly. Older mortar-bedded ridges are a different job, and on a roof of the right age, converting to a mechanically fixed system is worth discussing rather than re-bedding mortar that will crack again.
Storm damage around a chimney affects the masonry, the flaunching at the top, the pots and the lead flashing at the base. On the older Bridgend stock the mortar is often the weak point; on later housing it is more often the flashing, particularly where it has been repaired before with mastic rather than properly re-dressed lead.
Where both the stack and the surrounding covering have been affected, we assess the whole area together rather than treating the two as separate jobs.
Extensions, garages, dormers and porches account for most of the flat roofing we see in Bridgend. Wind damage concentrates at perimeter details — the drip edge, the upstand where the flat roof meets a wall, and the corners — because those are the points where the covering is terminated.
We assess felt, EPDM and other systems and give a straight answer about whether repair or replacement is the better value. A covering with years left in it and one split should be repaired. A covering that has failed in several places is telling you something.
Where roofing materials are loose or water is entering, the immediate task is to reduce the risk and limit further damage. What is possible depends on the weather, on safe access and on the extent of what has moved.
Temporary measures are exactly that. They buy time so that the permanent repair can be done properly rather than in a gale, and we will always tell you which of the two we have carried out.
We inspect the roof, identify the work required and provide a written quotation. Insurers generally want to know what the damage is, what caused it and what the repair costs, and a clear description of the defect is more useful than a general statement that the roof was damaged in a storm.
Whether the claim succeeds is a matter for your insurer and your policy. We will not tell you what your policy says, because we have not read it and neither has anyone else who promises you a result.
Slate is thin, flat, usually dark grey and laid in overlapping courses with no interlocking profile. Concrete interlocking tiles are thicker, profiled and visibly slot into one another. If you are unsure, a photograph from the ground is usually enough for us to tell you.
It is worth having yours assessed. Estates built in one push reach the same age together, so mortar-bedded ridges across a street tend to reach the end of their life at a similar time.
It depends on the roof's age and condition, and we will set out both options with costs. On an older roof, a mechanically fixed system avoids repeating the same failure in another fifteen years.
Often a capacity problem rather than a hole — a blocked valley, an overwhelmed gutter or a junction that cannot cope with volume. It is a different repair from a missing tile and worth diagnosing properly.
That is characteristic of interlocking tiles. They restrain each other, so losing one removes support from its neighbours. The repair needs to restore that restraint, not just fill the gap.
Yes, we cover Bridgend and the surrounding area. Call and tell us where you are and we will confirm.
Yes. It is a short-term business model to sell people work they do not need, and we would rather quote for the repair you actually require.
Five guides written specifically for Bridgend. We are publishing these in batches rather than all at once, so some are still being written — those are marked, rather than linked to a page that is not there.
We cover fifteen areas from our base in Neath. If yours is not listed, call and ask — the list is where we work most, not a boundary.
Tell us what the weather has done and what you can see from the ground. We will assess the roof, explain what needs repairing and give you a free, no-obligation quotation.
Tell us what the weather has done and what you can see from the ground. We will come back to you — usually the same day.
If water is coming in now, please call rather than email — 07766 547309.
