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

First, Clear the Ground

A roof that has lost one tile has lost the restraint around several more, and with open water in front of the town the weather is often not finished when the first lot comes down.

1. Move everyone well clear of the ground below and around the roof, with a generous margin
2. Move cars off the drive and away from the wall
3. Keep children and pets indoors and away from that side
4. Bring in or secure anything loose in the garden — bins, furniture, trampolines. In the next gust they do damage too
5. If material could reach a pavement, a path or a neighbour, tell them
6. Do not go out to collect tiles while it is still blowing

And do not go up. Not onto the roof, not up a ladder for a better look, and not because somebody has arrived at the door with a ladder on the van. A single-storey roof feels reachable, which is exactly why people try it. It is still a wet, unstable surface with material that has already moved.

Why a Hipped Roof Loses Material Where It Does

A gabled roof has two slopes, one ridge and two verges. A hipped roof — sloping on all four sides, which most bungalows here have — is often assumed to be better in wind, and in one respect it is: there is no large flat gable wall for wind to push against.

The trade-off is that wind does not damage roofs by pushing on walls. It gets under material at EDGES, and a hipped roof has considerably more edge than a gabled one.

• Four hips instead of two verges. Each hip is a line of mortar-bedded tiles running from ridge to eaves, as exposed as the ridge and rather more numerous.
• An eaves line running the full perimeter of the building, rather than along two sides.
• A short ridge. On a square-ish bungalow the ridge may be quite short, so proportionally more of the roof is hip.
• Deep overhanging eaves, common on mid-century bungalows, which give wind something to push up against from underneath.

The Eaves Overhang and Uplift

This is worth understanding because it is the one genuinely structural concern on a low, exposed building.

A wide eaves overhang in a strong onshore wind is a surface with air being forced underneath it. That produces lift, and the lift is acting on the roof structure at its edge, not just on the covering. It is why storm damage on an exposed bungalow occasionally involves the soffit, the fascia and the rafter feet rather than only tiles.

If guttering, fascia or soffit has come away as well as tiles, mention it when you call. It is a different and more significant finding than tiles alone.

What Landed, and What It Tells You

• Hip tiles. Bedded in mortar on older roofs, so the mortar has likely failed along that whole line, not just where these came from.
• Whole tiles or slates with clean fixing holes. The fixings failed rather than the covering — and salt spray reaches well inland here, so that is common in Nottage and Newton as well as on the front.
• Broken material. Something struck the roof, or the covering had deteriorated.
• Ridge or hip tiles with mortar still attached in lumps. The bond failed rather than the mortar crumbling, which usually means the whole line is sitting rather than fixed.

Keep everything, somewhere out of the wind. Matching a profile is far easier with one in hand, and any fixing still attached answers the question of what actually failed.

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 and say so when you ring

On a bungalow there is one specific consideration: the roof space sits directly above every room rather than above one floor of two, so water entering anywhere can reach any part of the house. There is also generally more insulation across a larger area, and wet insulation stops insulating and stays wet for a long time.

Photograph It From the Ground

• The material where it landed, before moving it
• A close shot of any fixing or mortar still attached
• Each affected elevation from far enough back to show where on the roof
• The full length of each hip line, since damage runs along them
• The eaves, fascia and guttering, particularly at the corners
• Any internal damage, with the date

Check Anything Else That Sits on the Roof

On an exposed site, whatever is mounted on or through a roof is usually the first thing to be affected, and it is routinely left out of a storm damage check.

• Rooflights and roof windows. Look at the flashing kit around them and whether the frame still sits flush. They interrupt the covering, so wind gets a purchase at their edges.
• Solar panels. Check whether any panel or rail is sitting differently from its neighbours, and whether anything has come away from a mounting. The fixings pass through the covering, so a loosened panel is a roof problem as well as an electrical one.
• Aerials and satellite dishes. These come down in coastal winds regularly and take tiles with them, and a bracket left half-attached is a hazard.
• Vents, soil pipes and extract terminals. Small, easy to miss, and each one is a hole through the roof relying on a seal.
• Solar or hot water pipework crossing the roof surface.

If anything mounted on the roof has moved, mention it separately when you call. Some of it needs a different trade as well as a roofer, and knowing in advance means the right people come.

What to Tell Us When You Call

• Whether it is a bungalow or two storeys, and whether the roof is hipped
• Whether the material came from a hip, the ridge, the eaves or the middle of a slope
• Which elevation, and whether it faces the sea
• Whether any guttering, fascia or soffit has come away as well
• Whether water is coming in, and how soon after it started
• Whether the wind is still up where you are

T & T Roofing South Wales covers Porthcawl, Nottage, Newton and Rest Bay from our base in Neath, and quotations are free and without obligation.