What Should You Do If Roof Tiles Blow Off in Cwmbran?

First, Clear the Ground

A roof that has lost one tile has lost the restraint around several more, and whatever is loose will come down at some point in the next few hours. A concrete tile is heavy and falls from height.

1. Move everyone well clear of the ground below and around the roof
2. Move cars off the drive and away from the wall
3. Keep children and pets indoors and away from that side
4. If material could reach a shared path, a parking court or a neighbouring property, tell them
5. Do not stand underneath it to take a photograph

Why You Must Not Simply Slot the Tile Back

This is the Cwmbran-specific point and it deserves the space.

An interlocking tile roof is a system, not a set of independent parts. Each tile locks into the ones beside it and laps the ones below, and only the perimeter tiles and periodic courses are mechanically fixed. The rest are held by their own weight, by the interlock, and by the tiles around them.

So when a tile blows off, three things have happened, and only one of them is visible. There is a gap. The tiles either side have lost part of their restraint. And whatever allowed the first one to lift — a broken nib, a failed clip, a lifted edge nearby, a broken batten — is still there.

A correct repair restores the restraint as well as filling the gap: the surrounding tiles are checked and re-secured, the fixing method is put right rather than relied on, and whatever failed first is identified.

Do Not Go Up At All

Do not climb onto the roof, do not put a ladder against the gutter, do not send a relative up, and do not accept the offer from somebody who has arrived at the door with a ladder on the van. A tiled roof that has shed material is unstable in ways invisible from below, and it is wet.

Look at What Landed

• Tile broken on impact but otherwise sound. Normal — concrete tile breaks rather than slides.
• A tile with a broken nib — the small lug on the underside that hooks over the batten. That is a fixing failure and worth mentioning.
• Several tiles from the same area. A run has started; the ones either side are the next to go.
• Clips, nails or fragments of batten with it. The problem is beneath the covering, not in it.
• A verge tile or an end cap. The perimeter is open, which is how wind gets under the rest.

Keep what came down, out of the way. Matching a tile profile from the 1960s or 1970s is far easier with one in hand, and some are no longer made.

If Water Is Coming In

• Move furniture, electricals and anything of value clear
• Buckets and towels, and lift the carpet edge if you can
• If water is near a light fitting, a socket or the consumer unit, turn that circuit off at the board
• If a ceiling is bulging with trapped water, stay out of the room entirely and say so when you ring
• Check the loft only if the ceiling around the hatch is sound

Housing of this age normally has underlay beneath the tiles, which buys you time — a single missing tile over intact underlay does not usually leak straight away. If water IS coming in quickly after losing one tile, that suggests the underlay is torn as well, which is worth telling us because it changes the job.

Photograph It From the Ground

• The tiles where they landed, before you move them
• Each affected elevation from far enough back to show the position
• A zoomed shot of the gap and the tiles either side of it
• The verge and the ridge in the same run, since damage spreads along them
• Any internal damage, with dates

What to Tell Us When You Call

• How many tiles, and whether they are in one area or scattered
• Whether they came from the middle of a slope, the verge or the ridge
• Whether any remaining tiles look out of line
• Whether water is coming in, and how soon after it started
• Whether the garage, canopy or any flat section is affected too
• Whether neighbours on the same terrace or block have had similar damage

That last one is not idle curiosity. On an estate of identical roofs it tells us whether we are looking at a one-off failure or a batch reaching the end of its life, and those lead to different recommendations.

If It Came From the Verge or the Ridge Rather Than the Slope

Where on the roof the tile came from changes how urgent it is, and it is worth working out before you call.

A tile lost from the middle of a slope is a local failure over what is usually intact underlay. A tile lost from the verge or the ridge is different: those are the roof's perimeter, they are what stops wind getting underneath the covering in the first place, and they are mechanically fixed precisely because they carry that job.

So a gap at the verge is not one tile missing. It is the edge of the roof standing open, and in the next strong wind it is the point air gets under and works inwards from. The same is true of a ridge tile. If what came off was an edge component — a verge tile, an end cap, a ridge tile, a hip tile — say so when you ring, because it moves the job up the list.

The Question Worth Asking

When somebody quotes, ask whether they are re-securing the surrounding tiles or only replacing the missing ones. On an interlocking roof that is the whole difference between a repair that holds and one that gets tested again in February.

T & T Roofing South Wales covers Cwmbran from our base in Neath, and quotations are free and without obligation.