Roof repairs in Cowley

Most of Cowley's houses went up in a hurry, for the car-works families of the 1930s and the council estates that followed, and many now wear concrete interlocking tiles. Each tile hangs on the batten by a nib under its top edge. Older roofs were often nailed only at the edges or every few courses, so a cracked nib or a softened batten is all it takes for a tile to slide. Many sit at a shallow pitch, so rain blown under one lifted tile reaches the felt quickly.

Hipped roofs are common on the estate semis, which means more mortar-bedded hip and ridge tiles than a simple gable, and more places for frost to crack the bedding. Houses on one street were usually roofed together, so neighbours' roofs tend to fail together. Around Florence Park and Cowley Marsh the trees shade many roofs, so moss grows thick and fills the gutters below.

• OX4, January 2025: a pitched roof repaired, then cleaned.
• OX4, September 2025: a chimney cowl and guttering repaired, for a friend of a past customer.

I cover every street in Cowley. I'll usually see a Cowley roof the next day, at no charge.

Slipped and cracked concrete tiles

A single slipped or cracked concrete tile is a small job: the broken one comes out, and a tile of the same profile goes in and is fixed so it stays. It will look cleaner than its neighbours for a few years.

If tiles are sliding all over one slope, the battens or fixings behind them are failing and patching won't hold. I'll say so: my main roof repairs page covers re-tiling part of a roof.

Loose ridge and hip tiles on estate roofs

On a hipped semi, the hips on the weather side usually go first: the mortar cracks, washes out, and the tiles start to rock. Loose ridge and hip tiles come off, the old mortar is cleaned away, and they go back on.

Where most of the ridge has failed, I can replace the old mortar-bedded ridge with a dry-fixed one, held with clips and screws, so there's no mortar for frost to crack.

Moss, gutters and the repair

Moss is why many Cowley repairs start. It lifts tile edges, keeps the surface wet and, in frost, helps crack old concrete. The pitched roof I repaired in OX4 in January 2025 was cleaned as well. I clean with a mix of hand scraping, low-pressure washing and moss treatment, depending on the roof. What comes off ends up in the gutters: see roof cleaning and guttering.