SW19

Flat Roof Repairs in SW19: Wimbledon Park, Merton Park & the Chase

Below and east of the hill, SW19 turns into something quite different: Edwardian grids, garden-suburb streets and interwar semis. The flat roofs are small and numerous rather than large and communal, which is bay tops, porch canopies, back additions and garages. None of them gets a figure until somebody has been up to it.

Or call us on 07593 196505

The district

What SW19 actually covers

East of the hill the postcode runs through the Wimbledon Park grid and its Edwardian terraces, then into Merton Park’s laid-out avenues and the tighter streets of South Wimbledon, before thinning into the interwar semis around Wimbledon Chase. The village and the town centre sit at the other end of the same code, and have a page of their own.

Local stock

The roofs of SW19

  • The Wimbledon Park grid. Edwardian terraces delivered bay tops, porch canopies and rear additions in quantity, so a single street can hold a hundred small flat areas turned up against brickwork. They fail one detail at a time, which makes them a diagnosis job rather than a re-covering job.
  • Merton Park and South Wimbledon. Planned avenues at one end and closer-packed terraces at the other, both extended repeatedly at the back over the last few decades. Where several coverings have been laid over one another, the sensible question is what is underneath them, and that is a refurbishment decision taken on evidence.
  • Interwar streets towards the Chase. Semi-detached houses came with a garage beside them and, later, a flat-roofed extension behind them, both now well past the life of their original coverings. Renewal on structures like these is usually torch-on felt laid on sound boarding.

The wider area

The wide shot: Merton

Widen the frame to Morden and Mitcham and you get flat roofing in Merton. Head the other way up the hill and the housing changes character completely, into large houses and mansion blocks: flat roofing in Wimbledon.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Do you cover all of SW19?

Yes, the whole code. This page is about its eastern and southern half: the Wimbledon Park streets, Merton Park, South Wimbledon and the roads running out to the Chase. For the village on the hill and the blocks around the Broadway, the page you want is flat roofing in Wimbledon. Where SW19 runs over a borough line, the line makes no difference to us.

What tends to fail on an Edwardian bay and porch roof?

The small flat tops, and usually at their back edge. A bay roof or a porch canopy is a modest area of covering turned up against the front wall, and after a hundred years the turn-up has hardened, cracked or been buried under successive coats of something. Water then runs behind it into the brickwork rather than off the front, which is why the damp shows up inside a bay window rather than above it.

Are the interwar garages around the Chase worth renewing?

Often, and the decision comes down to the boarding. These are 1930s structures with original coverings long past their intended life, and where the timber underneath is still sound a new covering goes over the top. Where it is soft, the roof comes off and gets rebuilt. Opening a corner settles that in ten minutes; guessing at it from the drive settles nothing.

A flat roof problem in SW19?

Bay top, porch canopy or a garage that has given up: tell us the street.

Give us a phone number or an email address, whichever suits you.

A picture of the stain inside, or of the roof if there is a safe window to take one from, usually saves a question. They go up when you press send, which is the slowest part on a phone signal, and the form will tell you how far it has got.

Or call 07593 196505

Coming out and pricing the work is free; a written condition survey carries a fee, agreed before the visit and taken off the price of the work if you go ahead.