How We Work

Below is exactly how a roofing job runs with us in Maidstone, from the first phone call to the guarantee arriving.

What Our Survey Looks For on Maidstone Property

The three-stage survey

Every survey follows the same three stages regardless of job size. Ground-level perimeter assessment with binoculars records ridge lines, hips, valleys, tile surface, chimney condition, lead visibility and roofline. Roof-surface access lets us test ridge mortar bond by hand, inspect lead at every flashing and check felt at the eaves. Loft inspection from inside shows daylight through the covering, staining on rafters, damp insulation and whether the eaves ventilation path is blocked.

The loft stage is the one most often skipped by others and the one that changes the answer most. Nail sickness on a Victorian roof and felt failure on a 1930s semi are only assessable from inside, and both turn what looked like a repair into a replacement conversation.

Key Fact

The National Federation of Roofing Contractors advises homeowners to obtain written, itemised quotations specifying materials and access arrangements before any roofing work begins, and to avoid contractors requesting substantial payment in advance of materials being delivered to site.

What we look for by stock era

On the post-war estates across Penenden Heath, Park Wood, Coxheath, Larkfield and Shepway we are assessing concrete tile surface delamination, recording what proportion of tiles show exposed aggregate, and checking ridge and verge mortar that is now four to six decades old.

On the Victorian and Edwardian terraces of Fant, Tovil and the town centre the priorities are nail condition, lead at chimneys and valleys, and whether previous repairs used correct materials. Cement repointing on a lime-mortar stack is a finding in its own right.

On the 1930s semis of Bearsted, Loose, Barming and Allington the original bitumen felt is now ninety years old, and its condition at the eaves is usually the deciding factor between patching and re-covering.

Scaffold, permits and the access day

Where scaffold is needed we arrange it, inspect it and include it as a named line in the quote. On the narrow town-centre streets — Gabriels Hill, Bank Street, Earl Street, Upper Stone Street — pavement scaffold needs a licence from Maidstone Borough Council, and we allow a few working days for that rather than promising a date we cannot hold.

Skip placement follows the same logic. Where there is no off-street space we arrange a permit; where a skip genuinely will not fit we use bagged waste removal instead and price it that way from the outset.

A worked local job

A recent example: a 1960s semi on the Park Wood estate with three slipped tiles and a damp patch in the back bedroom. The survey found the slipped tiles were incidental — the actual ingress was a failed lead soaker at the rear abutment, two metres from where the stain appeared.

The quote covered replacing the soakers and re-bedding the affected tile courses at £520, rather than the re-roof another firm had quoted at £7,800. The work took a day from a tower with no scaffold needed. That is the difference a loft inspection and an honest diagnosis make, and it is why the survey stage is not a formality.

After we leave

The site is cleared daily rather than at the end, and on completion we walk the perimeter with you before the scaffold comes down. Anything you are not happy with gets addressed then, not scheduled for a return visit.

You receive photographs of the finished work from scaffold level, a specification statement naming the materials used, and the written ten-year workmanship guarantee. If a fault appears in covered work within that period, we come back and put it right without argument.

What You Get at Each Stage

Stage	What you receive	Cost
First call or callback	Triage and honest steer on urgency	Free
Survey	Roof access, loft inspection, photographs	Free
Written report	Condition assessment and recommendation	Free
Itemised quote	Materials, scaffold, contingency, VAT named	Free, valid 30 days
Scaffold and permits	Arranged and inspected by us	Named line in quote
Completion pack	Photographs, specification, guarantee	Included

No deposit on repairs under £500. Staged payments on re-roofs, with nothing due before materials are on site. All prices include VAT.