Roofers in Margate

Local roofers in Margate covering Cliftonville, Westbrook and the Old Town. Slate re-roofs, fibreglass flat roofs, repairs and chimney work. Free survey.

Looking for roofing services in Margate?

Margate keeps us busy. We're ten minutes down the coast in Broadstairs, and between the Old Town, Cliftonville and Westbrook there's about as much variety in roofing as you'll find anywhere in Kent — Georgian parapets, enormous Victorian slate roofs, seafront flats and post-war semis, often on the same afternoon.

It's also a town where roofs get tested harder than most. Margate faces north across the Thames Estuary, so it takes weather that Broadstairs and Ramsgate are partly sheltered from. When there's a northerly blowing, the seafront gets the full force of it.

We've worked on everything here from a mosque re-roof in Spanish slate to garage flat roofs on the estates. Whatever the job, you're dealing with Colin from the first look to the last check.

What Margate roofs are up against

The seafront and Cliftonville are the challenge. A lot of those big Victorian and Edwardian properties were built as hotels and boarding houses, and many have since been split into flats. They come with steep slate roofs, deep valleys, parapet gutters hidden behind the front elevation, and lead detailing that was never designed to be ignored for forty years. When a parapet gutter fails on a building like that, the water doesn't run off the front where you'd see it. It goes straight down inside the wall.

The Old Town is different again — tighter, older, awkward to get scaffolding to, with roofs that back onto one another and shared valleys where two properties meet. Access is half the job.

Out at Westbrook, Palm Bay and Northdown you're mostly into inter-war and post-war housing: concrete tiles, shallower pitches, and a great many flat-roofed garages, dormers and extensions added over the years. That's where most of our fibreglass work in Margate happens.

The common thread is the wind. North-facing seafront roofs lose tiles and ridge caps in a way inland roofs simply don't, and salt gets into everything — nails, flashings, fixings. We replace a lot of corroded ironwork in Margate that would still have years left in it a few miles inland.


What Margate roofs are up against

The seafront and Cliftonville are the challenge. A lot of those big Victorian and Edwardian properties were built as hotels and boarding houses, and many have since been split into flats. They come with steep slate roofs, deep valleys, parapet gutters hidden behind the front elevation, and lead detailing that was never designed to be ignored for forty years. When a parapet gutter fails on a building like that, the water doesn't run off the front where you'd see it. It goes straight down inside the wall.

The Old Town is different again — tighter, older, awkward to get scaffolding to, with roofs that back onto one another and shared valleys where two properties meet. Access is half the job.

Out at Westbrook, Palm Bay and Northdown you're mostly into inter-war and post-war housing: concrete tiles, shallower pitches, and a great many flat-roofed garages, dormers and extensions added over the years. That's where most of our fibreglass work in Margate happens.

The common thread is the wind. North-facing seafront roofs lose tiles and ridge caps in a way inland roofs simply don't, and salt gets into everything — nails, flashings, fixings. We replace a lot of corroded ironwork in Margate that would still have years left in it a few miles inland.


What we do in Margate

Whether it's a Victorian slate roof on the front or a garage roof on a nineteen-fifties estate, it's the same list:


Just across the coast from Margate

We cover the whole of Thanet and out across East Kent:

Featured project

Re-roofing the Margate Mosque in Spanish slate

One of the jobs we're proudest of in Margate is the re-roof we completed on the Margate Mosque.

The building needed a full slate upgrade, and we fitted Spanish slate throughout — a hard-wearing natural slate that suits this coastline and looks the part on a building that matters to a lot of people locally. Slate is unforgiving work: the gauge has to be right, the nailing has to be right, and every course shows if it isn't.

It's the sort of job that only comes your way if people trust you with it, and we were glad to get it.

TESTIMONIALS

What our customers think

We're rated 5.0 out of 5 from over 115 Google reviews and were named a Nextdoor Neighbourhood Faves winner in 2023 — by customers across Margate and the rest of Thanet.

Margate has had its share of roofers who turn up, take a deposit and are never seen again. We're ten minutes away and we're not going anywhere.

GET IN TOUCH

Get a free roof survey in Margate

Leak, storm damage, or a roof you know is on borrowed time — we'll come out, get up there and tell you honestly what we find. Written estimate, no pressure.

Frampton Roofing Ltd
Call Colin on 07771 269291
Email info@framptonroofing.uk
Broadstairs, Kent

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions we get asked in Margate

Here are a few frequently asked questions we get from customers in Margate. If you have another question in mind, please do get in touch and let us know, we'll do our best to answer!


My flat is on the top floor of a converted house and the roof is leaking. Who sorts that?

Usually the freeholder or the management company, since the roof is normally a communal responsibility rather than yours alone. It's worth checking your lease. We're used to quoting for freeholders and management companies as well as individual leaseholders, and we can provide the sort of written report and photographs that tend to be needed before a decision gets made.

What's a parapet gutter and why does my building have one?

On many of the Victorian and Edwardian properties along the front and through Cliftonville, the roof is hidden behind a low wall at the front. The rainwater collects in a lead-lined gutter running along the back of that wall. Because you can't see it from the street, it gets ignored for decades — and when it fails, water goes into the building rather than off it. It's behind a surprising number of the serious damp problems we're called to in Margate.

Do you do the smaller jobs, or just full roofs?

Both. A fair bit of our Margate work is a few slipped tiles, a flashing, or a gutter that's come away. We'd rather do the small job properly now than the big one later.

We keep losing ridge tiles after storms. Is that normal?

It's common on this seafront and it's fixable. Ridge tiles that are only bedded in mortar will eventually work loose in this kind of exposure. Mechanically fixing the ridge and hip system costs more up front and stops you replacing them every winter.

Still have a question?

Roofing services in kent

Our Areas of Service

Along with Margate, we work across many different areas of Kent. If your area isn't listed here, please drop us a line.

Broadstairs

Margate

Ramsgate

Thanet

Canterbury