Storm season prep
Preparing for a roof emergency: what to have ready and who to call
The worst moment to look for an insurer's number or the location of the fuse board is with water coming through the ceiling. An hour of preparation beforehand makes a bad night far more manageable.
Nobody plans a roof emergency, but a house on or near the coast is a fair candidate for one. Slate maker Cupa says buildings on slopes, hills or coastal sites, and tall buildings, will be graded with higher exposure, which is why roof fixings on those sites are specified for the location rather than copied from a standard. In the Met Office's write-up of the Great Storm of 1987, one ferry from the Channel ended up on the shore close to Folkestone, and winds reached Force 11 (56-63 knots) across many of the south-east's coastal regions. A storm of that size is not needed to lose a ridge tile, but it shows what the weather on this coast can do.
Preparing is mostly small, boring jobs done on a dry afternoon: a box of kit, a list of numbers, a quick look at the roof from the ground and a note of where things are in the house. None of it puts you up a ladder.
This page walks through the kit worth keeping, the things to locate before you need them, a pre-winter check you can do from the garden and the loft, a contacts sheet to fill in, and what to expect when you do have to call someone out.
01Key points
Why a coastal house needs a plan
Exposure is the one coastal fact worth building a plan around. A roof that sees more wind and driven rain than a sheltered one has to be fixed down with that in mind, and the fixings are only one part of it. The other part is being ready to respond when something goes wrong.
Marley describes BS 5534, the slating and tiling standard, as covering which battens to use, how to fix the covering, and the sums for wind uplift that produce a fixing specification for the site. Marley also says that installing to BS 5534 isn't required by law, and that its 2015 amendments made clear mortar alone could not be trusted to hold the covering on. A roof laid before that change may still have mortar carrying more of the load than it should, particularly along the ridge.
That is worth knowing, though not worth worrying about. What it means in practice is that a ridge or verge on mortar alone is the sort of detail to have a roofer look at before the autumn gales, not after.
Planning for an emergency comes down to three questions:
- Could you make the inside of the house safe in ten minutes, with what you already have?
- Do you know who to ring, and have you got the number on paper as well as in a phone that might be flat?
- Has anyone looked at the weak points of the roof while the weather was still fine?
If you can answer yes to all three, a storm is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.
02Leaks
A leak kit for one cupboard
You do not need specialist kit. Everything below is cheap, and some of it may be in the house already. The point is to keep it together in one place that everyone in the house knows about, so nobody is hunting through the garage in the dark.
What does not belong in the kit is anything that sends you onto the roof. A ladder, a tarpaulin and a roll of roofing tape all tempt people into jobs they should not do on a wet slope in a wind, and a roofer will be arriving with equipment that fits the roof in front of them.
Keep the kit somewhere dry and on the ground floor, not in the loft, since the loft is the one place you may not be able to reach when it matters. Check it once a year when the clocks go back, and replace the batteries as a matter of routine.
- Two or three buckets or large bowls, and a roll of bin liners.
- A heavy plastic sheet or an old shower curtain, to put under a drip and over furniture.
- Old towels and a mop.
- A torch with spare batteries, plus a head torch if you have one, so your hands are free.
- A fully charged power bank and a charging cable for your phone.
- Masking tape and a marker pen, for labelling items you have moved and marking the edge of a stain.
- A notebook and pen, kept with a printed copy of your insurance details.
- A pair of rubber gloves, and sturdy shoes by the door.
Roof emergency preparation: your questions
What should I keep at home for a roof leak?
Buckets or large bowls, bin liners, a heavy plastic sheet, old towels, a torch, a charged power bank, and a notebook with your insurance details. Keep them together on the ground floor. Nothing in the kit needs a ladder, because the roof itself should be left to a roofer with access equipment.
03Side by side
Things to locate before you need them
A surprising amount of emergency time is spent finding things. Walk round the house once, with a pen, and fill in the table below for your own home.
It also helps to know what kind of roof you have over each part of the house. A flat roof over an extension fails in a different way to a pitched one, and a roofer can send the right materials if you can say which one is leaking. If you share a roof with a neighbour, as in a terrace or a block of flats, note who to contact there too: our page on shared roof repairs on a terrace explains why a shared roof needs a shared conversation.
Mark the house on a simple sketch too: the loft hatch, the consumer unit and the stopcock, with the route between them. When the power is off and the house is dark, a sketch on the cupboard door saves a long search. Show everyone who lives there, including teenagers and lodgers.
Take a few photographs of the outside of the house in good condition, from the ground at each side. If you ever need to show an insurer what was there before a storm, those pictures are the easiest evidence to produce, and they cost nothing now.
| Item | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Consumer unit | Isolating a circuit near a wet ceiling |
| Main water stopcock | Stopping a burst tank or pipe in the loft |
| Loft hatch | Checking for drips, from the joists only |
| Policy documents | Insurer's number and your policy number |
| Landlord or managing agent | Who to tell if you rent or share a roof |
04In brief
A pre-winter check from the ground and the loft
You can learn a lot about a roof without leaving the garden. Pick a dry, bright day in early autumn and walk round with binoculars or the zoom on your phone.
How do I know if my roof is ready for autumn gales?
Look from the ground at the ridge, the verges, the flashings and the gutters, and from the loft for daylight or damp timber after rain. A tile out of line, loose mortar or a lifted flashing is worth a roofer's look before the weather turns. Photograph whatever you find.
- Look along the ridge for tiles that sit at an angle, gaps in the line, or crumbs of mortar on the ground beneath.
- Look at the verges, where the roof ends at a gable, for the same: loose mortar or tiles that have shifted.
- Check the flashings, the metal strips sealing the joint between the slope and a chimney stack or house wall, for any that have lifted or pulled away.
- Look for slipped or missing tiles and slates, and for the pale patches where one has already gone.
- Check the gutters and downpipes for overflow stains down the wall, and for sections that sag or have separated at a joint.
- Look at the paving beneath the eaves for granules, broken pieces or ridge mortar, which tell you something is shedding.
Then look at the inside. In the loft, with a torch, and stepping only on the joists, look for daylight where there should be none, for damp or stained timber, and for the smell of wet insulation. The best time to do this is the day after heavy rain, when a fault shows itself.
Gutters are the smallest job on the list. In its November 2025 survey, Which? Trusted Traders gave £75 to £350 for clearing every gutter, front and back, of a house, and a blocked gutter that overflows in a storm can soak a wall and a fascia for no good reason.
Anything you find goes on a list with a photograph, which a roofer can price from. Our page on loose ridge tiles explains what a ridge repair involves if that is what you spot.
05In figures
The contacts sheet to fill in now
Write these down on a single sheet and pin it inside a cupboard door. A phone that has run flat or lost signal in a storm is no help, and numbers are hard to find at midnight.
Fairview Folkestone Roofing is on 01303 476263, and WhatsApp is 07880 284133, which suits sending photographs of the damage. Put whichever roofer you choose into the sheet before you need them.
Some numbers are worth having for the aftermath. For a dispute with a firm over a repair, the Citizens Advice consumer helpline is 0808 223 1133. If a claim goes wrong, the Financial Ombudsman Service helpline is 0800 023 4567; complaints go to the insurer first, and the Ombudsman's guidance gives the firm up to 8 weeks to consider most of them. Keep a note of the date you first wrote to your insurer.
If part of a building looks as if it could fall, such as a chimney leaning or a wall bulging, keep people away from it. Ashford Borough Council gives a dangerous structures number on its building control page, 01233 331111 out of hours, for Ashford addresses. For anywhere else, ask your council's building control team.
| Who | What to have ready |
|---|---|
| Your insurer | Policy number and the claims line from your policy |
| A local roofer | Where the water is coming in; photos |
| An electrician | Which rooms have wet ceilings or lights |
| Landlord or managing agent | Your tenancy details and a note of the fault |
| A neighbour | Spare key and a number, if you are away |
06At a glance
When you do ring: what to expect
A call-out in an emergency is about making the roof safe, and the lasting repair follows in better conditions. The figures below are third-party guides, not our prices.
Do I need a roofer lined up before a storm?
It helps. Having a number written down means you are not searching online in the dark, and a roofer who has already seen the roof has a head start on what is wrong. Photographs can go by WhatsApp to 07880 284133, with a line on where the water is coming in and when it began. Keep a copy of what you sent.
| Work | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency call-out | Typically £150 to £300 | MyJobQuote |
| Extensive storm repairs | Can cost £1,200 or more | MyJobQuote |
| Average roof repair | Around £650 in 2026 | MyJobQuote |
Our page on roof repairs sets out the work itself. For the lasting job, you get one written total price after a visit to inspect the roof, and the quote should say whether VAT and the scaffold sit inside it.
It also helps to know the consumer rules before the call. Sign a contract indoors at your house following a survey and a 14-day cancellation period applies; work begins within it only on your written request. Regulation 28(1)(e) of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 takes that right away where the consumer specifically requested a visit from the trader for the purpose of urgent repairs, so an emergency visit you asked for has no cooling-off period.
That is no reason to put off ringing. It is a reason to ask what you are agreeing to, to get the scope in writing, and to keep your photographs and receipts together in the kit you have already made up.
Finally, tell the people you live with what the plan is. Whoever is home when the drip starts should know where the kit is, which switch to isolate and which number to ring first.
Tell us what's wrong with the roof.
You'll get one written total price.