Being a roofing company in Central Scotland means we spend a lot of time repairing and replacing roofs in Edinburgh, whether that be flat, tiled or traditional slate roofs. In general, though, we find that the Scottish capital has an abundance of slate roofs – they’re iconic!
Spanish Slate
With old Scotch slate being a rarity nowadays (see our Scotch slate roofing project in Bo’ness – linked) we find we work with a lot of Spanish slate. Like its Scottish counterpart, Spanish slate is a natural material. Unlike Scotch slate, though, it hasn’t been cut by hand. It is processed into set sizes by machines, producing more uniform and regular slates to match the standards and environmental demands of UK roofs in the UK. As time goes on, we can expect to see more and more Spanish slate replacing the older, traditional slate roofs we are used to seeing in Edinburgh. However, lots of the Scotch slate roofs will last up to 100 years – so it won’t all change overnight!
A Recent Project
We recently world on a Spanish slate roof in Edinburgh. There was a great deal of water ingress due to shoddy workmanship by a previous roofing company, so our main task was to repair the roof and make it completely watertight (essential for roofs in Scotland)!
Our repairs involved working on the chimney, replacing lead caps, guttering, watergates and valleys (aided by the lead bossing training some of our team underwent – check out the video). We of course replaced the slates and also added a Velux skylight (link to skylight blog).
Our Skilled Roofers
Ali, Daniel and Reece worked on this roof as a team, utilising their skills in slate roofing, lead bossing and Velux window installation to produce a brand new Spanish slate roof!
As mentioned, we were called in to rectify the poor workmanship of the previous roofers. We often find that we’re called in to fix issues that have come up as a result of unprofessional practice that leads to leaks and loose slates or tiles.
We don’t want to be emergency roofers, though! We want to improve the quality of roofing in the Edinburgh area with highly skilled roofers who carry out high-quality work. The best way to do this is by doing the job ourselves in the first place! To find out more about our work listen to Kelly, our Director, talk about the amazing skillset of our team!
