Missing Roof Tiles After High Winds in Maesteg: What Should You Do?

First, Clear the Ground

A roof that has lost one slate has lost the restraint around several more, and on the stepped terraces of the Llynfi Valley what comes off can travel a long way before it stops.

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 pavement, an entry or a neighbour's yard, tell them
5. Do not stand underneath it to take a photograph

And do not go up. Not onto the roof, not up a ladder to look, and not because somebody has knocked with a ladder on the van. Wet slate is one of the most treacherous surfaces in the building trade, and a roof that has already shed material is unstable in ways invisible from below.

Why the Clock Starts Now, Not When It Leaks

Air arriving off the Bristol Channel is forced upward by the rising ground of the valleys, cools as it rises and drops its water inland and upland rather than on the coast. The practical effect is that Maesteg receives a great deal more rain from the same weather system than Porthcawl does, and for longer.

So a gap in a roof here is not a static problem waiting patiently for a repair. It is an opening that is going to be rained into, repeatedly, probably within days.

How to Tell What Is Beneath the Gap

You can usually establish this from inside without going near the roof.

• Go into the loft in daylight, with a torch, staying on the joists
• Look at the underside of the roof covering. If you can see the backs of the slates and the battens directly, there is no underlay
• If you can see a felt or membrane layer, there is — check whether it is intact or torn, particularly near the eaves
• Look for daylight, which tells you where the gap is from the inside
• Look for wet or darkened timber, and for damp or flattened insulation

Do not go into the loft at all if the ceiling below is bulging, sagging or dripping.

What Landed, and What It Tells You

• Whole slates with clean holes. The nails failed rather than the slate. That is a whole-slope condition and worth knowing before you pay for a patch.
• Broken slates. Something struck the roof, or the slate itself has come apart in layers — which in a wet climate does happen, and is a different problem.
• Slate in a valley gutter rather than on the ground. That is a blockage as well as a gap, and blockages in a valley are how the serious leaks start here.
• Mortar debris. Usually from a ridge or a chimney rather than the slope.

Keep whatever came down, stacked flat and out of the way. Sound Welsh slate is frequently worth relaying, matching size and thickness is far easier with one in hand, and an insurer may want to see it.

Check the Valley and the Gutters at the Same Time

This is the Maesteg-specific step and it is worth doing while you are outside anyway.

Almost every terrace here has a rear extension or outhouse, and where its roof meets the main roof there is a valley carrying a large share of the roof's water through a narrow channel. A storm delivers the leaves, moss and grit that block it at the same moment as the water — and a displaced slate can slide into it and do the job on its own.

If you can see the rear roof from an upstairs window, look. And during the next spell of rain, check from the ground whether water is coming out of the downpipes or over the side of the gutters. A blocked valley or an overwhelmed gutter can put more water into a building than the missing slate will.

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

What to Look For Inside After the First Rain

The most useful inspection you can do is not on the day of the storm. It is during or just after the first proper spell of rain afterwards, because that is when the roof shows you what the gap actually means.

• Go into the loft while it is raining, if it is safe, and look with a torch at the underside of the roof near where the material came from
• Water running down a rafter tells you where it is getting in far more precisely than a ceiling stain will, because it has not travelled as far
• Feel the insulation near the eaves — it soaks before anything shows below
• Look at the ceiling below afterwards, and mark the edge of any damp patch in pencil with the date, so you can tell next time whether it is growing
• Check the same spots again after the following spell, which is what tells you whether it is worsening or holding

Do not go into the loft if the ceiling below is bulging, sagging or dripping. And if you find water actively running rather than staining, ring us rather than waiting for the booked date.

What to Tell Us When You Call

• How many came down, and from where on the roof
• Whether they are broken or whole
• Whether there is underlay beneath, if you have been able to look
• Whether anything has landed in a valley or a gutter
• Whether water is coming in, and whether it started straight away or after a spell of rain
• Whether you are end of terrace, mid-terrace or the top of a stepped row

That last one is not a formality on a valley-side street: access to a rear roof is often what decides the equipment and the timing. T & T Roofing South Wales covers Maesteg and the Llynfi Valley from our base in Neath, and quotations are free and without obligation.