Nationwide Roofing Southern provides reliable roofing services across Henfield. With over 50 years of experience, we offer high-quality roofing solutions with free surveys and quotes.
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Village houses rarely have a single roof. A Henfield property is often an original cottage with a Victorian addition on the back, a nineteen seventies extension beside that and something more recent again, each built in its own decade to its own standards and covered in whatever was normal at the time. The roof is therefore several roofs joined together, and almost every problem we are called to sits at a junction between two of them rather than in the middle of any one.
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We prioritise timely project completion with minimal disruption to your home or business, ensuring you receive dependable roofing solutions when you need them.
Our fully accredited and qualified team adheres to the highest industry standards, ensuring safe, professional roofing installations and repairs.
We use premium materials to create long-lasting, weather-resistant roofs that protect your property for years.
We keep every system in house rather than fitting the one we happen to specialise in, so the advice is about your roof and not about our kit:
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A new roof starts underneath the covering. We strip back, check the battens, underlay and rafters, and put right whatever the old roof was hiding before anything new goes on. On an older Henfield property the timbers are frequently the real story, because they have carried a heavy covering for a very long time and have usually been altered at least once. Everything is laid to the manufacturer’s specification so the warranty stands behind it.
Roofs get replaced when the covering has aged out rather than after one failure: tiles slipping every winter, mortar gone from ridge and verge, underlay that tears at a touch. On a property built in stages it is worth deciding whether to do the whole thing at once or one section at a time, because doing it in pieces leaves you with junctions between new work and old. We set out both options rather than assuming.
We trace a leak to where the water is getting in rather than to where it appears on the ceiling, and on a property that has grown in stages those can be different parts of the building entirely. Junctions between an original roof and a later addition account for most of what we are called to here, along with valleys blocked by leaf litter off the surrounding trees. Small repairs done early cost far less than what follows.
Flat roofs around Henfield are mostly on the later additions: rear extensions, garages, porches and dormers. We install and repair felt, single ply, EPDM and GRP fibreglass systems, set the falls so water reaches the outlets rather than standing, and detail the upstands properly. The critical point is nearly always where the flat roof meets the older pitched roof or the wall above it, because that abutment is doing the hardest work.
Clay tile through the older village property, slate on some of the Victorian housing, concrete interlocking on the later additions. On an old roof part of the job is often undoing what a previous re-covering introduced, because a material that was cheap and available at the time is not always one that sits well on the building. We match size, profile and colour as closely as we can source, and weathered material never matches new exactly.
A green roof needs a deck that will carry the loading, the right falls, and a waterproofing layer designed to sit beneath a growing medium. Around Henfield the practical candidates are usually flat areas on extensions, garages and outbuildings, and newer development where the weight was designed in from the start. On a property in a conservation area the appearance may be controlled, so consent comes first. We survey before specifying anything.
Hot melt is a monolithic waterproofing system, laid hot so that it bonds completely to the deck with no seams or laps to fail. It earns its place where a leak would be expensive and disruptive to trace, and where the waterproofing sits beneath something else: a podium deck, a roof terrace, a car park or the build up of a green roof. Because the membrane bonds fully to the substrate, water cannot track between layers, so a defect stays where it happened rather than surfacing somewhere else entirely.
Around Henfield it is most relevant on larger flat areas and on any roof carrying a terrace or a green roof above the waterproofing. It is one of our own core systems rather than something we subcontract, and we survey the deck and the existing build up before specifying it.
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Timber framed and tile hung property through the old village centre, some of it very old and much of it in a conservation area. Around and beyond it, Victorian and inter war housing, twentieth century infill, and the outlying property scattered along the lanes towards the Adur brooks and up onto the Downs. Steep pitches are common, and so are catslides, where the roof sweeps down from the main ridge to cover a single storey range at the back. Very little of it is standard.
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Nationwide Roofing Southern has been roofing across the South East for over 50 years. We are members of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors and we are CHAS accredited, with full public liability and employer’s liability insurance in place on every job and a certificate available on request. Our system warranties cover labour, materials and damage. Surveys and quotes are free, come in writing, and carry no obligation.
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If a Henfield roof is leaking, or is old enough and complicated enough that nobody has looked at it properly in years, the survey costs nothing. On a property that has grown in stages that means looking at all of it rather than the section the stain is under, because the junctions between the parts are usually where the answer is. We put what we find in writing, with a price against it.
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Henfield sits in the Low Weald of West Sussex, between the South Downs and the Adur valley. Roofs here see a mix of inland and downland pressures. Westerly and south-westerly autumn gales over the Downs test ridge tiles and chimney pointing on exposed properties. Heavy tree cover means autumn leaf fall blocks gutters and valleys quickly. Frost damage to cracked pointing on older Wealden cottages is the main winter risk. Salt-related corrosion is a minor factor at most, only on properties close to the Adur valley.
Yes. Henfield has a designated conservation area covering the historic village centre and surrounding lanes, with listed buildings throughout the older village. Conservation area rules and listed building consent are the homeowner’s responsibility and can restrict roof shape, slope, tile material and rooflight placement. We recommend checking with Horsham District Council’s planning team before any roof work begins, and we will work to whatever specification the council approves.
Henfield’s older housing is Sussex Low Weald vernacular: timber-framed and tile-hung cottages with clay-tile or peg-tile pitched roofs, plus brick farmhouses. Victorian and Edwardian additions across the village use natural-slate or clay-tile pitched roofs. Newer estate housing on the village edges uses concrete interlocking tiles, with hot melt or EPDM on flat extensions and garages. Each comes with a different maintenance pattern.
After a strong westerly or south-westerly over the Downs, look for slipped, cracked or missing tiles, dislodged ridge or hip tiles, fallen branches across roof slopes, leaf-fall and debris blocking valleys and gutters, and damp patches on top-floor ceilings or chimney breasts. Lifted lead flashing around chimneys is common on older Henfield properties after a strong blow. If you spot anything, get it covered or assessed before the next weather front arrives.
Because it was not all built at once. A typical Henfield house might be an original cottage with a Victorian range on the back, a nineteen seventies extension beside it and something newer again, each covered in whatever was normal when it went up. So the building has several roofs of different ages, pitches and materials joined together. That is not a fault, it is just what village property is, but it does mean a survey has to look at the whole building rather than the one slope above the damp patch.
That junction does the hardest work on the building and it is where most of these roofs fail. The two structures have settled differently over the years, they may have been built to different standards, and whoever joined them had to make a detail that accommodated both. Flashings, soakers and valley details at that point are carrying water off one roof and past another, often at an awkward angle. When a village property leaks, the junction is the first place we look and usually the last place a previous repair looked.
It is where the main roof carries on down past eaves level to cover a single storey range at the back, so one continuous slope runs from the ridge almost to the ground. They are common on older Wealden property around Henfield and they look wonderful. They are also long, which means a lot of water travelling a long way over a lot of tiles, and the bottom of that slope takes everything the whole roof has collected. Access is harder too, since there is no convenient eaves line partway down.
A repair puts right what has failed. A restoration takes the roof back to how it should be, which on an old building often means undoing decisions made by other people over a long period: mortar where a flexible detail belonged, a modern tile mixed into a handmade run, a valley reformed in the wrong material. Restoration costs more and lasts far longer, and on a property in a conservation area it may be the only approach the specification allows. We set out both honestly and let you choose.
It is common on village property and it usually shows up as a roof that keeps needing attention without any single obvious fault. A covering that is too heavy for the timbers, or too rigid for a building that moves, or simply the wrong profile for the pitch it is laid on, will never quite settle. The honest answer is that patching it repeatedly is money spent twice. We will say when that is what we are looking at rather than quoting for another repair that will not hold.
By separating what is visible from what is not. The appearance of an old roof comes from the covering: the material, the size and the way it sits, and where we can we salvage and re-lay what is already there. Everything underneath it, the battens, the membrane, the insulation and the ventilation, can be brought up to current standards without changing how the roof looks from the lane. That is usually the answer on an older property and it is what a conservation area specification is generally trying to protect.
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At Nationwide Roofing Southern, we are members of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors (NFRC) and we are CHAS accredited. Our accreditations reflect our commitment to high-quality service, strict safety standards, and lasting results. Whether it’s repairs, installations, or maintenance, you can trust our skilled team to deliver reliable roofing solutions that meet industry expectations.
