In short
We come out day or night and make the roof watertight on that first visit: slipped tiles back, missing ones replaced, an open ridge or torn underlay sheeted down properly. The permanent repair is quoted in writing and done in dry daylight, within days rather than weeks depending on the weather and scaffold. Ring your insurer's 24-hour line first: the ABI says to keep photos and an itemised invoice for emergency repairs, and we give you both.
This is a job for our Emergency Roof Repairs service.
Inside the house, in order
- Move furniture, electricals and anything on the floor out from under the leak. Put a bucket down and, if the ceiling is bulging with water, pierce it with a screwdriver over the bucket rather than let it come down at once.
- Switch off the lights in that room at the consumer unit if water is anywhere near a fitting.
- Do not go on the roof. Checkatrade's guide says it plainly: leave the roof to a checked roofer, because DIY roof repairs can be extremely dangerous. A wet tile in a gale is how people end up in Pilgrim Hospital.
Ring the insurer, then ring us
The Association of British Insurers' storm guidance is to contact your insurer as soon as reasonably possible, and it points out that most have 24-hour emergency helplines that can advise on next steps and arrange repairs. It also says to only do emergency or temporary repairs to prevent further damage if it is safe and you have spoken to your insurer, and to take photos or video and keep an itemised invoice.
That is why we ask you to make that call before we start, not after. When we arrive we photograph the damage before we touch it, do the minimum needed to stop the water, and give you an itemised invoice for the call-out. Insurers rarely argue with a dated photograph of a lifted ridge and a receipt for the tarpaulin.
What we do on the night
- Make it safe. Loose tiles, a leaning stack or a hanging gutter comes down before it falls on someone.
- Make it dry. Slipped tiles go back, missing ones are replaced from the van, a torn underlay or open ridge gets a fixed sheet, not a loose tarp that is in the next garden by morning.
- Tell you what is really wrong. A storm rarely breaks a sound roof. It finds the mortar that had already failed or the lead that was already lifting, and we will show you the photograph.
The permanent repair
We come back in daylight, in dry weather, to quote the proper job: re-fixing the ridge as a dry ridge, re-dressing the flashing, or re-covering a slope. Checkatrade's 2026 roof repair guide lists urgency, meaning emergency or out-of-hours work, among the things that raise the price of a repair. We keep the two separate: a call-out charge for the night, and a written quote for the repair that you can take to your insurer and accept when you are ready. Repairs from us are guaranteed for five or ten years depending on the work.
The ABI note adds one more thing worth passing on: a house can take weeks, sometimes months, to dry out fully, so do not rush to redecorate the stained ceiling. Let the roof prove itself through a few wet weeks first.