Roof repairs and re-roofing in Chalfont St Peter

Housing in Chalfont St Peter

What the roofs here are like

Chalfont St Peter has an old village core around the church and the Misbourne crossing - period cottages and inns under steep clay tile, some listed - but it is far larger than that core suggests, because it expanded very heavily through the 20th century. The bulk of the housing is interwar, postwar and 1960s-70s: detached and semi-detached houses on estate roads, concrete tiled roofs, hipped and gabled, with attached garages and a great many later extensions. There is substantial bungalow and chalet bungalow stock, much of it now converted into the roof with dormers front or back. Modern development, including apartment schemes near the centre, has continued steadily.

What we get called out for

The problems that come up in Chalfont St Peter

This is a village where the extension is the story. Very few of the 20th-century houses are still as built, and the recurring leak we are called to is at the junction where a rear or side addition meets the original roof - a flashing that was done cheaply twenty years ago and has finally given up. Dormer conversions on the bungalow stock give the same pattern at the cheeks. Concrete tiles across the postwar housing are at the age where surface loss becomes obvious, and flat roofs on garages and single-storey extensions make up a steady share of the work. The old core around the church is a conservation area.

Working in Chalfont St Peter

Access, scaffold and what affects the timescale

Access is easy on the estate roads and driveways that make up most of the village; the centre is busier and parking near the High Street is limited. The recurring practical issue here is boundaries. So many properties have been extended that the work often sits right on or over a neighbour's line, and reaching a side extension roof frequently means putting a scaffold foot on their ground. That needs asking, and it is much easier asked three weeks before than on the morning the scaffold arrives. We will flag it at the quote if we think it applies. The old core around the church is a conservation area.