Seasalter · 27.5 road miles north of Folkestone
Roofers in Seasalter
A roof in Seasalter is surveyed for exposure first, because the coastline is only 0.06 miles from the centre, and then for the approvals the address brings, with the Whitstable Town conservation area close by.
- Next-door designation
- The Whitstable Town conservation area, designated by Canterbury City Council, lies close to the centre
- Zone 3 land close by
- Zone 3 land on the Environment Agency's map sits not far from Seasalter's centre
- STG's part in a Seasalter re-roof
- STG Building Control Partnership, which serves Canterbury City Council
- Highway licence
- Kent County Council, £52 per week for 2026 to 2027
What a Seasalter roof survey can end up recommending
What we found
Ridge fixings loose at one hip
What it fairly needs
Refix it, keep the rest.
What we found
Lead lifting beside a chimney
What it fairly needs
Look under it before deciding.
What we found
Underlay split beneath a slope
What it fairly needs
Lift the covering and relay it.
The fair ledger
Ridge fixings, lead flashings and the approvals around a Seasalter roof
A roof this close to the coastline is surveyed with exposure in mind, and the same visit looks at the lead at the chimney and the approvals your address needs. Each entry closes on a verdict.
Entry 01Ridge fixings
A ridge 0.06 miles from the coastline holds by fixings, not mortar
Seasalter's centre lies 0.06 miles from the coastline, which puts its roofs in the higher exposure grade Cupa describes. The ridge shows a fixing schedule at work more clearly than any other part of the roof.
What Marley says about mortar
Marley is plain that installing to BS 5534 isn't required by law. It is just as plain that since the 2015 amendments, a mortar bed is not to be trusted as the sole thing securing a covering, and its dry-fix guidance repeats the point about mortar's tensile strength. Cupa, a slate maker, adds that coastal areas are graded with higher exposure. Put together, they mean that what holds a ridge down is something to work out for the site, not something to repeat from the last job.
Once ridge bedding has crumbled away, two routes are sound, and the survey names the one your roof supports. The first is to bed the ridge afresh and put a mechanical fixing through every tile. The second is to convert to a dry-fixed system, which has no mortar bed left to fail. The survey chooses between them by looking at what is actually on the roof.
- Ridge tile on top
- Bedding that has cracked
- Fixing that holds each tile
What the survey writes down
- Which ridge and hip tiles have moved, counted along each run.
- Whether a mechanical fixing is already in place, and whether it is holding.
- The condition of the bedding, as far as the loft shows it.
- The verge ends, so that the scaffold only has to go up once.
- Any tile that has cracked across, because a cracked tile cannot hold a fixing for long.
If the tiles are sound and only the bedding has failed, a repair is the fair answer, because there is no sense in stripping a ridge whose tiles are in good order, and our pitched roofing service explains how that choice is made. If the whole ridge line has started to shift, you see the photographs and the reasons before any replacement is priced.
BS 8612
the British Standard behind dry-fixed ridges, hips and verges
BSI shows it as current
Entry 02Lead work
Lead beside a Seasalter chimney: how long it lasts, and what code
Lead is one choice for sealing a roof against a chimney stack or wall. The survey asks whether the lead is lifting or the joint holding it has given way, because the two call for different work.
A lifespan with its condition attached
MyJobQuote says correctly installed lead flashing can last for over 80 years. The words that matter are correctly installed: a flashing dressed badly, or tucked into a mortar joint that has since crumbled, will not reach anything like that age, however good the metal was. The same is true of a stack whose brickwork has been left to open up around the lead for years. So the question at a chimney is never simply how old the lead is. It is how well the lead was fixed, and what has happened around it since.
Lead is sold by code, which is its thickness. Royston Lead's brochure lists code 4, at 1.80 mm, against soakers, dormers, flashings and pitched valleys, and code 5, at 2.24 mm, for parapets as well as flashings. Which code a detail takes is part of the specification, and it goes on the quote alongside everything else, so you can see what was chosen and why.
- Stepped flashing
- Joint it is dressed into
- Soakers beneath the tiles
- Flaunching around the pots
Looking before cutting out
A flashing that has lifted at one corner is not always a flashing that has failed. We look at the stepped line where the lead meets the brickwork, the joint into which it is dressed, and the soakers beneath the tiles beside it. Where the lead is sound and the pointing has opened, repointing and dressing it back is the fair verdict, and it avoids cutting out metal that is still doing its job. We would sooner leave good lead in place than cut it out. Where the lead has split, work in that detail is replacement.
Our lead work service describes how we survey and specify it. Every flashing visit begins with a photograph taken before anything is touched, and ends with another taken from the same spot, so the before and after can be compared by anyone reading the quote.
Lead sound, pointing opened
Repoint and redress
Lead split along a step
New flashing
The conservation area close by
Canterbury City Council designated the Whitstable Town conservation area, and it lies close to the centre of Seasalter. Whether your road falls inside it is for the council's map to say, and Canterbury City Council counts 97 conservation areas in its district. A conservation area normally leaves ordinary re-roofing as permitted development. Where an Article 4 direction is in force, further rights may be gone, so check with Canterbury City Council for the road in question.
We open the map at the survey, check the street name against the boundary line, and send the council the address with a short note of the work. Any reply is copied into the written quote exactly as it arrives, which means you can see what was said and by whom. If you have something larger in mind than a re-cover, start with our planning guide for roof work.
Entry 03Approvals
Next to the Whitstable Town conservation area: consents, STG and a scaffold
A new covering in Seasalter brings three questions: whether the conservation area reaches your road, who looks at the work, and whether scaffold stands on the highway.
What sets the price
- How many slopes are re-covered
- What the underlay and battens need
- Whether scaffold stands on the road
- Weight of the new covering
One written total price
STG and the highway licence
Building control in Seasalter is handled by STG Building Control Partnership, the partner Canterbury City Council names for applications, and a phone call to 01634 331133 reaches it. STG also serves Gravesham, Medway and Swale. Whether yours needs one turns on the Planning Portal's thresholds, and the survey measures the slopes to answer that, with a tape and a level. Where the new covering would be heavier, the weight of old and new is compared at the same time, with the result written into the quote. The Planning Portal advises checking that kind of change with a structural engineer or surveyor, and we say when that is the sensible course.
Highways here belong to Kent County Council, whose licensing leaves the company erecting the scaffold to lodge the licence. One permit covers 7 calendar days, and a longer job is renewed in good time. We arrange it with our scaffolder, so no application form and no separate invoice for it reaches you, and the quote already allows for the permit.
A Seasalter roof you would like looked over before you commit?
Two photographs, taken from the road and from the landing window, are enough to book a survey, and each verdict comes with its reasons attached.
Seasalter, 27.5 road miles on from Folkestone
Seasalter is 27.5 road miles north of Folkestone, about 38 minutes by road. A photograph from the ground and one from the loft hatch show a good deal before we arrive, and a message with them describing what the roof has been doing helps even more. The survey then covers the covering, the ridge, the eaves, the lead and the gutters, and we leave the roof and the garden as tidy as we found them. What follows is one written total price with a verdict on each fault, so you can weigh the roof against the work proposed and take your time over it.
Seasalter roofs, with the reasons behind each answer
What holds ridge tiles down on a Seasalter roof 0.06 miles from the coastline?
A fixing in every tile, worked out for the address. In Cupa's guidance coastal sites sit in a higher exposure grade, and Marley notes that since the 2015 amendments mortar by itself is not relied on to hold a covering. We either rebed the ridge with every tile mechanically fixed or move to a dry-fixed system, whichever the survey supports, and we explain the choice in writing, tile by tile where that helps.
How long can lead flashing last beside a Seasalter chimney?
MyJobQuote says correctly installed lead flashing can last for over 80 years, which is a statement about lead that has been fitted properly and is still sound. It is not a promise for any particular chimney, and a lifespan stated by a source is never a promise from us. We examine the lead, the mortar joint around it and the soakers beneath, then say whether the answer is to repoint, redress or replace.
Is my Seasalter road inside the Whitstable Town conservation area?
That area is close to Seasalter's centre, but whether your road falls inside it is for Canterbury City Council's map to say. The council also holds the answer on any Article 4 direction, which can remove further rights. We put your address to the council before pricing and quote what it replies, in its own words, so nothing is assumed and you can read the reply yourself. The conservation area also matters for how a repair is described, so the note we send carries photographs of the street face.
Which team checks a new roof covering in Seasalter?
Canterbury City Council's applications go to STG Building Control Partnership, on 01634 331133. Building control can be done by the council's team or by a registered approver, so ask who is acting. The Planning Portal's test sets the line: leave less than 25 per cent of the building envelope and less than 50 per cent of the roof affected and no application is normally required; a covering that is 15 per cent or more heavier changes the answer. We work out which side you are on at the survey.
Does Flood Zone 3 near Seasalter's centre change the roof specification?
No. The Environment Agency's flood map lists Flood Zone 3 land not far from the centre of Seasalter, and that zone describes flooding on land, not a rule for roofs. We still follow the rainwater from slope to gutter to downpipe and note where it goes, since clear drains matter as much as a sound covering. We follow each downpipe to the drain.
Seasalter roof questions: send two photographs
You'll get one written total price.