Roof repairs, leadwork and tile matching across SW19, on the Victorian villas of Wimbledon Village and the Edwardian and interwar houses running down to Raynes Park. Free survey, 10-year workmanship guarantee.
Wimbledon roofs are larger, more complicated and more tightly regulated than almost anything else we work on in South London. A detached Victorian villa on Wimbledon Hill can carry more lead in its chimneys and valleys than an entire terrace elsewhere, and a good share of SW19 sits inside a Merton conservation area or, in places, on a listed building.
The consequence is that a Wimbledon repair has to be planned to a specification before it is priced. What material may be used, what profile it has to match and how a detail is allowed to be formed are decided partly by the building and partly by Merton, and finding that out after the scaffold is up is expensive.
K & M Roofing Solutions covers the whole of SW19, from Wimbledon Village and the streets facing the Common, through Wimbledon Park and the Edwardian terraces on Worple Road and Hartfield Road, down to South Wimbledon, Wimbledon Chase and Raynes Park.
For a job that has to be specified before it is priced, it is fair to want to check who you are dealing with first: we are on Google with our reviews, the registered Croydon address and both phone numbers. The rating there is 5.0 from 60 reviews.
SW19 runs from some of the largest period housing in South London at the top of the hill to ordinary interwar semis at the bottom, and the roofing changes completely across that range.
Wimbledon Village and Wimbledon Hill hold substantial detached and semi-detached Victorian villas, along with the houses facing the Common on Marryat Road, Church Road and Woodside. These are big roofs with real geometry: multiple slopes, deep valleys, large chimney stacks and lead detailing that was expensive when it was built and is expensive to renew properly.
Around Wimbledon Park the stock becomes Edwardian family housing, still generous but more regular, with the bay roofs, parapets and rainwater detail typical of the period.
Closer to the centre the grain tightens into Edwardian terraces along Worple Road, Hartfield Road and out towards Wimbledon Chase: clay tile, party walls, shared stacks and outriggers at the back.
South Wimbledon and Raynes Park add interwar semi-detached housing with concrete interlocking tile, and the area around the Broadway and the station carries newer residential development where the roofs are managed rather than owned individually.
Wimbledon problems are usually about scale, exposure or the accumulated history of a house, rather than about a covering that simply wore out.
The stacks on the Wimbledon Village and Wimbledon Hill villas are among the biggest we work on, often serving several flues and standing well clear of the roof. That height and mass makes them the most weather-exposed part of the building and the most demanding piece of leadwork on it. Failed flaunching, open pointing and split lead at the back gutter behind a large stack account for a substantial share of SW19 leaks.
A big Victorian villa carries lead in places a terrace simply does not have: secret gutters, back gutters, wide valleys, hips, dormer cheeks and box gutters between slopes. Every one of those is a hand-formed detail with a service life of its own, and they were not all installed in the same decade. Renewing one while its neighbours are the same age buys less time than doing the run properly.
Houses facing Wimbledon Common and those high on the hill take noticeably more wind loading than the sheltered streets lower down, and it shows in the roof. Ridge tiles work loose, verges lift, lead flashings fatigue at the fold and slates on the exposed elevation go before the ones on the other side of the same roof. An inspection here is worth doing elevation by elevation rather than treating the roof as one surface.
Wimbledon spans clay tile on the Victorian and Edwardian stock and concrete interlocking tile on the interwar housing in South Wimbledon and Raynes Park. They are not interchangeable, they weather differently and the wrong replacement on a visible slope is permanent. Getting a match on profile, colour and camber is a sourcing exercise rather than a fitting one, and on a conservation area elevation it is the part that decides whether the repair is acceptable.
Many SW19 houses have been extended and converted repeatedly over decades, and the roof is now an assembly of work from different eras done to different standards. The leaks concentrate where one generation of work meets another: an old dormer cheek against original slate, a flat roof abutting a converted slope, a rooflight that was never properly dressed in. The original roof is often the soundest part of it.
The Edwardian terraces around Worple Road and Hartfield Road carry parapets and the concealed rainwater detail that goes with them, so water leaves through outlets rather than over an open edge. Blocked or undersized outlets back water up against the parapet, which is a different failure from anything the big villas do and needs a different survey.
A significant part of Wimbledon lies within Merton conservation areas, with Wimbledon Village, Wimbledon Hill and the streets bordering the Common among the most tightly controlled. Wimbledon Common itself carries additional protective designations, and there are listed buildings in the area as well.
Merton has also made Article 4 directions covering residential streets, which withdraw permitted development rights for some external work. Between the designations and the directions, a good number of SW19 addresses cannot alter a roof without a full application.
What this restricts in practice is material and detail rather than repair. On a designated or listed building the covering has to match what is there in material, profile and colour, replacement leadwork has to be formed in the traditional way rather than substituted with a modern equivalent, and rooflights or dormers on a visible slope are frequently refused outright.
That is why a Wimbledon job is specified before it is priced. We establish what the building is, what designation applies, and what that permits, and then quote against a specification that will actually be acceptable. A cheaper quote that assumes a modern substitute material is not a cheaper job, it is a job that gets stopped.
Wimbledon jobs live or die on the specification, so these four are where the survey earns its keep.
The core of our Wimbledon work: chimney leadwork on the large Village and Hill stacks, valleys, back gutters, and matched clay or concrete tile replacement on visible slopes.
More about pitched roof repair and re-roofingThe flat sections created by decades of extending and converting SW19 houses, and the parapet outlets on the Edwardian terraces around Worple Road.
More about flat roof repair and waterproofingUseful where an old dormer or a converted slope meets a flat area, because a seamless layer can be taken over an awkward junction that no sheet material handles cleanly.
More about liquid applied waterproofingThe sensible way to inspect a tall Wimbledon villa roof and its stacks. No scaffolding to price before anyone knows what is wrong, and nobody walking on brittle clay tile.
More about drone roof surveySend us your SW19 address and what you have noticed. The survey is free, and if the honest answer is that you do not need the work, that is what the report will say.
