Old Market's roofscape is a genuine mix, with slate common on many of the older Georgian and Victorian buildings and clay or concrete tile found on properties built or re-roofed in later periods. A storm affects these two materials in slightly different ways, and understanding which you have on your own roof helps make sense of what a repair actually involves and roughly what to expect from it.
Slate typically fails when its fixing nails corrode or work loose over time, meaning a storm can dislodge slates that looked perfectly sound the week before simply because the fixing, rather than the slate itself, had already weakened. Tiles, by contrast, more often fail when wind gets under an edge and either lifts them out of position or cracks them against a neighbouring tile, a mechanism that depends less on age and more on the sheer force of the gust actually involved on the day.
Both materials share one important consequence when damaged: a missing slate or tile exposes the roofing felt beneath, which is only intended as a secondary barrier rather than a long-term covering. Left exposed for an extended period, this underlayer degrades under sun and rain, turning a simple like-for-like replacement into a more involved repair that also needs to address the felt or membrane underneath, adding time and cost to what first looked like a minor job.
On some Old Market buildings that have been re-roofed at different times over their history, it is not unusual to find more than one material on the same roof, perhaps slate on the main slope and a later tile covering on a rear addition. Understanding this kind of mixed history helps us plan a repair that matches the correct material to the correct part of the roof, rather than assuming the whole structure is uniform. Where junctions between two different materials exist, these transition points are also worth checking carefully after a storm, since they can be more vulnerable to wind and water penetration than either material performs on its own.
Repairing slate generally calls for closely matched replacement slate and correct traditional fixing methods, while tile repairs are often more straightforward if the tile profile is still commonly available, though older or discontinued tile types found on some Old Market properties can need the same careful sourcing as slate. In both cases, checking the surrounding area for similar early-stage damage is worthwhile, since storms rarely affect just one tile or slate in isolation.
If your roof in Old Market, whether slate, tile, or a mix of both, has been affected by recent storm damage, a free inspection will identify exactly what is needed and the most sensible way to fix it. All completed repair work carries our 15-year guarantee, so whichever material your roof is finished in, you can trust the repair to last.
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