Bungalows

More roof per house than anything else we work on — and the easiest roofs to look after well.

A bungalow is mostly roof. Relative to the rooms beneath it, no other house type carries as many tiles, as many hips or as much guttering — so the roof dominates both the building's looks and its maintenance bill. Ours ring every town we cover, from the avenues around Dunstable and Stevenage to the village edges beyond Kettering and Wellingborough, most of them built between the 1930s and the 1970s.

What bungalow roofs do

Three things distinguish them. Pitches run shallow — the roof was kept low on purpose — and shallow pitches shed water lazily, so they punish tired coverings sooner and rule out some tiles when re-roofing (every tile has a minimum pitch, and it matters here). Hips are everywhere, which means mortar bedding everywhere it can fail. And the eaves sit low: gutters fill with visible ease under nearby trees, moss thrives on slopes that hold morning damp, and — the one genuine advantage — all of it can be seen, reached and fixed more cheaply than on any two-storey house. Scaffolding needs shrink; so do surprises.

Work we do on bungalows

Constant small keep-fit — gutter clearance and realignment, moss managed sensibly (never pressure-washed), hip and ridge attention — plus re-roofing matched to the true pitch, and re-covering the flat-roofed extensions and dormers that chalet conversions add, usually in EPDM or GRP.

Repair options

Repair or replace

Because access is easy, bungalows are where prompt small repairs pay best: most visits need a ladder rather than a scaffold, so the economics tilt heavily toward fixing things young. The corollary: a bungalow roof that's been neglected to the point of re-roofing skipped a lot of cheap chances first. We'll price both honestly, but on this house type prevention genuinely is the bargain.

Our process

How we do it

Pitch drives everything we recommend. Before quoting a bungalow re-roof we measure the real pitch slope by slope — extensions often differ from the original — and only offer coverings rated for what's actually there. It's the detail that separates a shallow roof that works for fifty years from one that damp-courses its own loft.

Common questions

Frequently asked

Why does our bungalow grow so much more moss than the house next door? +

Low eaves and shallow pitch. The roof sits nearer ground moisture and shade, drains more slowly, and holds damp longer each morning — a perfect moss nursery. Manage it gently and keep it out of the gutters; it's a housekeeping issue, not a defect, unless the tiles beneath are already ageing.

We're considering a chalet conversion — what should we know about the roof? +

That it becomes a different roof: dormers add flat surfaces and junctions, and junctions are where conversions leak. Insist on properly designed dormer coverings (EPDM or GRP, not minimal felt) and generous flashings where new meets old — done well at build time, they're trouble-free; done cheaply, they're our most common chalet callout.

Can any tile go on a shallow bungalow roof? +

No — every tile and slate has a minimum pitch below which it lets wind-driven rain through, and shallow bungalow slopes sit close to those limits. Interlocking tiles and certain profiles are made for low pitches; some traditional plain tiles simply aren't. It's the first thing we check and it non-negotiably shapes the options we'll offer.