Roofers in Bethersden

Historic England lists the Church of St Margaret at Grade I, list entry 1070794, first listed on 14 February 1967. A listed building normally needs listed building consent under section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 before work that alters what makes it special. A church in use for Church of England worship belongs to an exempt denomination, though, so that route does not apply. Work goes through the Church of England's faculty system instead, which is the church's own process and sits outside the council's.

That changes what a roofer is for. A faculty application needs facts, and the useful facts are a plain written account of the roof as found. Whoever prepares the paperwork can attach it instead of working from guesses. Ours covers:

• each slope in turn, noting slipped, cracked or missing coverings;
• the lead along the walls, and whether it still lies flat;
• gutters and downpipes, with their fixings and falls;
• dated photographs, labelled by slope.

If you care for a church building, settle the faculty route before asking anyone for a price. Access to a church roof means scaffold, and where it stands on the road it needs a highway permit, which we arrange with our scaffolder; the survey shows how much of it would sit on the road. Roofs on church buildings are also worth photographing from a safe distance each year, since slipped coverings and lifted lead are easier to deal with while they are small, and a dated set of pictures shows the church's advisers how a fault has changed.

A flood zone is a statement about land and not a roofing rule, and nothing in a survey changes because of it. It is still a fair reason to look hard at where the water goes once it leaves the slope. A roof sheds its rain in a short time, and every drop reaches a gutter, a downpipe and then a drain or soakaway before it is out of the way.

So the survey follows that route from the top. We look at the eaves first, because the underlay should run into the gutter and not stop behind it. Then we check each bracket for movement, because a sagging run holds water instead of passing it on. Joints come next, since a dropped joint drips onto the wall below, and then the outlet and the downpipe, which can clog with leaves long before any fault shows indoors.

Where the boards behind a gutter have gone soft, the brackets have nothing sound to bite into, and the job becomes a board and a gutter together. Our gutters, soffits and fascias service covers both, and the roof inspections service is the place to start if you only want a verdict on the roof. Either way the report names what is sound as well as what is failing, so a repair is not stretched into a replacement.

Gutters on an older house are also worth a look from inside the loft, along the eaves. If daylight shows where the roof meets the wall, or the timber there is dark and soft, the fault is bigger than a loose bracket, and the report flags it before a price is written. A soft board or a rotted rafter end is the kind of finding that turns a gutter job into a timber repair, and nobody should learn that after the scaffold is up.