Roof repairs and re-roofing in Croxley Green

Housing in Croxley Green

What the roofs here are like

Croxley Green is arranged around a long green with an old core at its north end - period cottages and a church, with the former paper mill and canal-side buildings down in the Gade valley below. The great majority of the housing, though, is interwar: Croxley expanded substantially in the 1920s and 1930s after the Metropolitan line reached it, and the result is street after street of semi-detached and detached housing with hipped tiled roofs, bay windows, rendered or pebbledashed upper storeys and small front gardens. Postwar development fills the ground towards Watford, and there is modern infill and apartment building near the station and on the former industrial land by the canal.

What we get called out for

The problems that come up in Croxley Green

The interwar stock here is remarkably uniform, which means the same jobs come round repeatedly: mortar-bedded ridges and hips at the end of their life, bay roofs in lead or felt that need replacing, and original timber fascias and soffits that have been capped over at some point rather than replaced. Hipped roofs have a lot of running metres of hip tile, and on a 1930s house that is usually the first significant expense. Down in the Gade valley the ground is damp and treed, so gutters fill fast and moss establishes quickly on north slopes. Parts of the green are within a conservation area.

Working in Croxley Green

Access, scaffold and what affects the timescale

Working here is generally easy: interwar streets with short drives, room for scaffold on your own land, and no licence needed in most cases. On-street parking gets tight on the roads nearest the station and the green. Because the housing is so consistent, the same jobs come round repeatedly and our pricing here is quick - hip and ridge work on a 1930s semi is something we have done many times on these streets. Down in the Gade valley the ground is soft and damp, so scaffold needs proper bases, and gutters fill faster than on the higher ground. Conservation-area constraints apply around parts of the green.