Tonypandy and the Rhondda Fawr were built at speed for the coal industry, largely between the 1870s and the years before the First World War. That produced one of the most consistent housing stocks anywhere in Britain: terraces in tight ribbons along the valley floor and up its sides, in stone, roofed in Welsh slate, built within a couple of decades of one another.
Those roofs are now well past a hundred years old, and that is the honest starting point for any conversation about storm damage here. T & T Roofing South Wales repairs storm-damaged roofs throughout Tonypandy and the Rhondda, and on a roof of this age the useful question is not only what can be repaired but whether repairing is the right thing to do.
Below is what we are most often called to in Tonypandy, 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.
Welsh slate is one of the most durable roofing materials ever put on a building. Slates taken off a Rhondda roof today are frequently sound enough to lay again, which is why reclaimed Welsh slate has a market at all.
The nails are a different story. A slate is held by two nails near its head, and those nails have been sitting in a damp, ventilated roof space for well over a century. They corrode, thin and eventually part. When enough of them have gone, slates begin sliding out of position — intact, undamaged, and no longer attached to anything.
The trade has a name for this: nail sickness. It is not a defect in the roof so much as the roof reaching the end of the period its fixings were ever going to last, and it arrives across a whole slope rather than in one place.
How to tell the difference from the ground. If the slates coming off are broken, something has struck the roof or the slate itself has delaminated. If they are landing intact, with clean nail holes, the fixings are failing — and that is a whole-roof condition, not a local one.
When a roof of this age loses slates in a storm, there are two genuine answers and we would rather set out both than push you towards the one that suits us.
A repair replaces the lost slates and re-secures the immediate area. It is quick, it is much cheaper, and where the rest of the fixings still have life in it, it is the right answer and we will tell you so. On a roof where nail sickness has set in across the slope, it will hold for a while and then the next storm will find the next weakest area.
A recover strips the slate, replaces the battens and the underlay, and relays the covering — often using much of the original slate, since the slate is usually the part still fit for service. It costs a great deal more and it resolves the problem for decades rather than for a season.
Neither is automatically right. What is not right is being sold a series of repairs on a roof that needed recovering, one storm at a time, until the total exceeds what the recover would have cost. We will tell you which situation we think you are in, and why, and then it is your decision.
The Rhondda Fawr is a narrow valley with steep sides, and confining moving air between them speeds it up. Terraces here also step up the valley sides, which creates exposed ends and points where one roof stands above its neighbour.
The result is that damage concentrates predictably: end-of-terrace properties, the top house of a stepped row, the ridge line where there is no neighbouring roof to shelter it, and the junctions where one property's roof rises above the next.
Ridge tiles bedded on mortar in the 1890s have had well over a century of thermal movement to crack the bond. Many are sitting in place rather than fixed, which is why they can be dislodged in a wind that the roof has weathered many times before.
On a stepped terrace on a valley side, a ridge tile that comes off can travel a considerable distance and reach a neighbour's property. If one is visibly out of line, treat the ground below as unsafe and call us.
Almost every Rhondda terrace has gained a rear extension or outhouse, and where its roof meets the main roof there is a valley or a flashed junction. Those junctions handle a great deal of water in a narrow space and they are the most common source of a leak with no visible damage from the street.
Water entering there can run along battens and rafters and appear well away from the entry point, which is why tracing it properly matters more than repairing the first suspicious area.
The terraces carry a great many stacks, many shared on the party line and most no longer in use. Without a working flue drying them from the inside, disused stacks stay damp, and damp masonry weathers faster. A stack unused since central heating arrived can be in far worse condition than it looks from the pavement.
Where a stack sits on a party line, the sensible sequence is to establish what needs doing before anyone discusses who pays. We assess the stack and the surrounding covering together and set out what the work involves.
The rear additions on Rhondda terraces are frequently flat or very shallow, sitting lower than the main roof and catching everything that comes off it. Storm damage there tends to show as water rather than as visible damage: a split at an upstand, a lifted edge trim, or an outlet blocked by debris brought down in the same storm.
We assess felt, EPDM and other coverings and give a direct answer on whether a repair or a recovering is the sensible course.
Where material is loose or water is entering, the first job is to reduce the risk and limit the damage. On a wet century-old slate roof on a valley side, the judgement about what can be done safely on the day matters more than usual, and we will not take a chance with it.
We inspect the damage and provide a written quotation for the work required. It is worth knowing, on a roof of this age, that insurers commonly distinguish between damage caused by a storm and deterioration that a storm exposed, and that on a century-old covering that question comes up often.
We describe what we find accurately, including where age is part of the picture. That is more use to you than an account that does not hold when it is examined, and it means you know where you stand before you commit to anything.
Because the nails failed rather than the slate. Welsh slate routinely outlasts its fixings, so on a century-old roof slates slide out intact with clean nail holes once the nails have corroded through.
The point at which a slate roof's nails have corroded to the extent that they can no longer be relied on across the slope. It is a whole-roof condition rather than a local defect, and it is why repairs to one area are followed by failures in another.
It depends on whether the fixings still have life in them across the slope. Where they do, a repair is right and we will say so. Where nail sickness has set in, a series of repairs usually costs more over time than recovering once. We will tell you which we think you are in.
Frequently a good proportion of it can, because the slate is usually the part still fit for service. We assess that and tell you what proportion we expect to be able to relay.
That is a strong signal and worth acting on rather than waiting. Call us and describe where you can see it from.
Treat the area as unsafe, tell your neighbour and call us. On a stepped valley-side terrace a ridge tile can travel a long way.
Yes. We assess the stack and the roof around it and set out what the repair involves, which is usually the information both households need before working out how to proceed.
Five guides written specifically for Tonypandy. 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.
