9 miles from New Pitsligo
Roofers in Mintlaw
Mintlaw has grown more than almost anywhere else in Buchan, and most of its roofs are a good deal younger than the ones we work on elsewhere. That changes the job.
Newer housing, different faults
Where a village like Strichen is mostly slate on sarking, a large part of Mintlaw is estate housing from the 1970s onwards roofed in concrete interlocking tile on battens over roofing felt. Those roofs do not suffer from nail sickness and they rarely need stripping at forty years old. What they do suffer from is specific and predictable:
- Mortar verges cracking and letting go of the end tiles
- Ridge tiles loosening where the bedding has failed
- Individual tiles cracked by foot traffic or frost
- The felt under the tiles perishing at the eaves, so water runs behind the gutter
- Original flat-roofed porches, garages and dormers on felt long past its life
That last one accounts for a lot of our Mintlaw work. A 1970s felt flat roof has had its day several times over, and replacing it in EPDM with the falls corrected is usually straightforward and not especially expensive.
Eaves felt, and why the gutter is not the problem
Worth explaining because it catches people out. If water is getting in at the eaves, the instinct is to blame the gutter. Often the gutter is fine and the roofing felt underneath the tiles has gone brittle and cracked where it laps over the fascia. Water running down the felt then drops behind the gutter instead of into it. No amount of clearing or resealing the gutter will fix that; it needs an eaves protection tray fitted under the tiles. If you have had a gutter "fixed" twice and it still runs behind, this is almost certainly why.
Replacing mortar with dry verge
Mortar verges on estate housing crack within about twenty years and then need redoing every time. Dry verge units clip over the end tiles mechanically, need no mortar, and do not come back. On a standard semi it is a job of hours rather than days and it removes a recurring cost.
Nine miles up the road
Mintlaw is a straight run from New Pitsligo through Old Deer, so we are there quickly and there is no travel charge. Aden Country Park side, the newer developments off the Peterhead road, the older centre — all the same to us.
Tiled roof or an old flat roof?
Most Mintlaw work is one or the other, and both are usually straightforward. Nine miles up the road through Old Deer, with no travel charge.