Cwmbran is unlike anywhere else we work, because most of it was built deliberately and quickly. Designated a New Town in 1949, it was laid out in planned neighbourhoods over the following decades, which means whole districts went up at once, to the same specification, using the same materials and the same details.
That has a consequence for roofs that people rarely connect until it happens to them. Roofs built together age together. T & T Roofing South Wales repairs storm damage across Cwmbran, and the pattern here is less about individual bad luck than about batches of roofs arriving at the same point in their life in the same winter.
Below is what we are most often called to in Cwmbran, 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 a street of Victorian houses, roofs have been repaired, recovered and altered at different times over a century, so their conditions vary widely. On a Cwmbran neighbourhood built in a single programme, they do not. The ridge mortar went on in the same year. The felt beneath the tiles is the same age. The fixings came off the same specification.
So when a storm takes ridge tiles off three houses in a road, that is worth reading as information rather than coincidence. The other roofs in that road are the same age and have had the same weather, and the ones that held this time are the ones to look at before the next storm.
What we would suggest asking. If you have had storm damage and neighbouring houses have had similar work in the last year or two, ask us to look at the whole ridge and verge line rather than only the section that failed. It costs nothing extra to look, and it turns a sequence of repairs into one decision.
Postwar planned housing made much more use of shallow roof pitches, mono-pitch designs and flat-roofed elements than the housing that came before it: integral garages, canopies over entrances, single-storey links between blocks, and flat roofs on outbuildings and communal structures.
A shallow pitch sheds water more slowly than a steep one, so it is less forgiving of a lifted tile or a blocked gutter. Driven rain can be pushed up a shallow slope in a way it cannot on a steep one, and water that would run harmlessly off a Victorian roof will sit and find a lap.
The predominant covering across Cwmbran's postwar housing is concrete interlocking tile. These are robust individually and depend collectively: tiles restrain one another through their interlock, with mechanical fixing typically at the perimeter and intermittently across the field of the roof.
Wind therefore does its damage by breaking into that system at an edge and then working inwards. Losing one tile in an exposed position frequently means losing several, and the repair has to restore the restraint as well as fill the gap.
Mortar-bedded ridges and verges from the middle decades of the last century are now well beyond the point at which the mortar bond can be relied on. Thermal movement cracks it long before anything visible happens, and a strong enough wind then lifts a ridge tile that has been sitting loose for years.
Where a roof is at that stage, re-bedding in mortar restores it to the condition it was in decades ago and starts the same clock again. A mechanically fixed dry-ridge or dry-verge system is worth considering instead, and we will give you both prices rather than steering you.
A leak appearing after a storm has three common explanations: something has come off, something has been lifted and put back imperfectly by the wind, or the roof could not shed water fast enough and it backed up. The third is more common on shallow pitches than people expect.
We trace water back from where it appears indoors to where it can actually be getting in, checking the covering, the junctions and the drainage. Repairing directly above a stain is how a leak returns.
Cwmbran has fewer chimneys than the older valley towns, but it has a great many abutments — points where a roof meets a wall, a neighbouring block or a higher section of the same building. Abutment flashing does the same job as chimney flashing and fails in the same ways: lifted edges, mortar joints opened up, and previous repairs made with mastic that has since hardened and cracked.
Where a stack is present, we assess it and the surrounding covering together, since a repair to one without the other rarely stops the water.
Wind damages flat roofs at their edges, because the edge is where the covering is terminated and where air can get underneath. A lifted drip trim, a failed upstand or a peeled corner will admit water while the field of the roof still looks perfectly sound.
We assess felt, EPDM and other systems and give a straight answer on repair against replacement. A single split in a covering with life left in it is a repair. A covering that has now failed in several places is at the end of its service and repeated patching costs more than replacing it.
If roofing material is loose above a path, a parking area or a shared walkway, the first job is removing that risk. If water is entering, it is limiting the damage inside. What can be done on the day depends on the weather and on safe access.
We will tell you clearly whether what we have carried out is a temporary measure or the permanent repair, and what remains to be done.
We inspect the roof, set out the work required and provide a written quotation. Insurers want a clear account of the damage and its cause, and a specific description carries more weight than a general one.
Whether your policy covers the work is a matter for your insurer. We describe accurately what we find, including where a storm has exposed a condition that was already developing, because that is the honest position and it is the one that stands up.
Quite possibly. Cwmbran neighbourhoods were built in single programmes, so the roofs share an age and a specification. If neighbours' ridges are failing, yours has had the same decades of weather.
A shallow pitch sheds water more slowly and driven rain can be pushed up it against the fall, so it is less tolerant of a lifted tile, a worn lap or a blocked gutter.
On a roof of Cwmbran's typical age, a mechanically fixed system avoids repeating the same failure in another fifteen or twenty years. We will quote both so you can decide.
For practical purposes yes, and it is often the oldest and least inspected covering on the property. It is worth including in any storm damage assessment.
That is how interlocking tiles behave. They restrain each other, so losing one removes support from its neighbours. The repair needs to restore the interlock, not just fill the hole.
Yes. Linking and communal flat sections are frequently overlooked precisely because they are not obviously anyone's main roof, and they are worth checking after a storm.
Yes. We can provide a written assessment and quotation suitable for a landlord, management company or block manager.
Five guides written specifically for Cwmbran. 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.
