Craig’s latest Checkatrade Blog

I thought I’d use this blog to tell you a story about what happened to one of my properties over the festive period. The house in question was first bought by my mum and dad 38 years ago and I ended up buying the property from my mum in 1995.

A week before Christmas, I was in the house doing some jobs for my current tenants. Over the next few days, the country suffered from some torrential rainfall which caused some of the terrible flooding you will no doubt have seen on the news, or even been affected by yourselves.

Unfortunately, this caused buckets of water to leak into three separate areas of the house. The tenants gave me a call and I got down there that same afternoon but the conditions made it impossible to get up on the roof. I returned the next morning and set up some temporary scaffolding. When I got up there, I saw the extent of the damage. There were at least 6 or 7 vulnerable areas and the weather over the next few days was not looking good.

I decided the best thing to do was a temporary fix that would last through the winter months until I could get the job done properly. In hindsight, it was at this point I should have got in touch with Checkatrade. Although I can do the job myself, on this occasion it would have been best to get the experts in to get the job done right first time.

Over the next three days, I had temporary scaffolding up and down twice as the roof was in a terrible state – it had definitely had its day and was still the original roof from way back in 1908 when the house was first built! Every time I lifted a tile up to replace it, one or two more would break and it seemed like the situation was going from bad to worse. It ended up being a patchwork job as Christmas was fast approaching and I didn’t have any more time to spare.

Though I finished the job to a standard that will last until summer, I wasted a great deal of time, effort and money when I could have got in touch with Checkatrade to hire a recommended, vetted and monitored expert.

My advice is not to attempt to carry out any repair work unless you know what you’re doing as roofing can be quite complex and you may end up causing more damage. I would also say that prevention is far better than the cure. It’s a good idea to get a pro out to do regular checks and minor repairs that will end up saving money in the long term. If you spot any damp and decay, remember that the problem will only get worse so make sure you deal with the issue as soon as possible.

The moral of the story is: if you have a roofing job that needs doing, look no further than Checkatrade!