We do the bulk of our emergency call-outs between November and February, and a large proportion of them were preventable in the autumn. Nothing here requires you to go on the roof — most of it you can do from the ground with a pair of binoculars and an hour to spare.
Clear the gutters before the leaves are down and wet
Late autumn, once the trees are bare, is the right moment. Blocked gutters overflow against the wall all winter, and in a hard frost the standing water freezes, expands and pulls the gutter away from its brackets. It is the single highest-value hour of maintenance on any house.
Sight along the ridge and the slopes
From the far side of the road, look along the ridge line — it should be straight. Then look across each slope for tiles that sit slightly proud, slightly low, or at an angle to their neighbours. A slipped tile in October is a £180 repair; the same tile after a January gale, with three of its neighbours gone and the underlay torn, is considerably more.
Check the mortar at ridges and verges
Binoculars will show you cracked or missing mortar along the ridge and down the gable verges. Mortar that has dropped out leaves tiles relying on gravity alone, and the first serious wind of the winter finds them. Dry-fixing is the permanent answer if it has reached that stage.
Look at the chimney
Open joints, vegetation growing out of the stack, a leaning pot or cracked flaunching are all visible from the ground. A stack takes weather from every direction and is the part of the roof most likely to cause a leak that people blame on the tiles.
Go into the loft with a torch
Look for water staining on the timbers, damp or compressed insulation, and daylight through the underlay. Do it after heavy rain for the most useful picture. Check too that the eaves are not blocked with insulation pushed hard into the corners — roof spaces need airflow, and a loft that has been over-insulated without ventilation produces condensation that gets diagnosed as a leak every winter.
Cut back overhanging branches
Branches over a roof drop debris into the gutters, keep the pitch permanently shaded and damp, and in a gale they take tiles off. Cutting them back in autumn deals with all three at once, and slows moss growth into the bargain.
Know who you are going to ring
If something does happen at two in the morning in a storm, that is not the moment to start comparing roofers. Save a number now. Ours is 01623 454545, and we answer it — see emergency roofing for what we can do out of hours.