Roofing Problems
You don't wake up wanting a "roofing service" — you wake up to a damp patch on the ceiling, water in the loft, or moss all over the tiles. This section starts from the symptom you can actually see and works back to the likely causes and the right fix. No problem can be fully diagnosed from a description alone, but you can usually get a long way.
The seven usual causes, in order of likelihood — and how each is confirmed.
What to do right now — and what the water is telling you.
Intermittent damp with a weather pattern — the roof's subtler warning.
Mostly harmless, sometimes not — and never a job for a pressure washer.
The "leak" with no hole — moist air meeting a cold roof.
A dip in the roof line — reading the difference between character and trouble.
Start with what you can see
Each guide in this section takes one visible symptom — water coming through the ceiling, damp patches after heavy rain, moss on the roof, condensation in the loft, a sagging roof line — and explains the causes we actually find when we investigate, roughly in order of likelihood. If you're starting from "there's a leak somewhere", begin with why is my roof leaking?
A word of honesty about remote diagnosis
No roofer can reliably diagnose a roof from a description, and you should be wary of one who quotes a fix without looking. What these pages can do is narrow the field, tell you whether the symptom is urgent, and stop you paying for the wrong repair — the classic example being a "roof leak" that's actually loft condensation, where new tiles would have fixed nothing.
When it's urgent
Active dripping during rain, daylight visible through the roof, tiles on the ground, or a bulge in a ceiling all justify a same-day phone call — a bulging ceiling holding water is a genuine safety issue, so pierce it over a bucket rather than letting it grow. For storm situations, our storm damage and emergency repair pages cover making the roof safe first and fixing it properly second.
Roofing Problems — your questions answered
The ceiling stain only appears in wind-driven rain — why? +
Is moss actually harmful, or just ugly? +
My roof looks fine from the street — can it still have a problem? +
Not sure what your roof needs?
Send us photos of the damage — our team will assess and recommend, at no cost or obligation.