Roofers in Adel

A suburb built decade by decade

Adel sits on high ground north of Leeds, just east of Otley Road (A660), with Green Belt farmland to its north. Leeds City Council’s conservation appraisal puts the historic core around St John’s Church at roughly 120 metres above sea level, between the Aire and Wharfe valleys, and describes the rest of Adel as suburban development from the 1930s to the 1980s. The Adel Neighbourhood Design Statement sums it up neatly: each decade favoured its own style, so Adel has become a history of 20th-century suburban house building. The 2001 census figures it quotes show detached houses far outnumbering everything else (1,311 detached, 574 semis, 186 terraced and 540 flats). That mix means roofs of very different kinds within a short walk, from gritstone cottages with stone slate to flat-roofed 1930s modernist houses and tiled 1970s estates. Each one starts with a free survey and a fixed quote in writing.

Tall external stacks and chimney repairs

Chimneys come up again and again in the Design Statement’s descriptions of Adel. Old Adel’s gritstone buildings have tall external stacks, and the 1930s houses around Adel Lane and Long Causeway are noted for tall chimneys and external stacks too, with the stacks on semis rising from the middle partition wall. An external stack built up the outside of a gable is exposed on three sides, so it weathers faster than one buried in the roof. Signs worth acting on:

• Open or sandy joints — mortar eroded from the brick or stone. Stone stacks are repointed in a lime mortar, which lets the masonry dry out; brick stacks get a mortar matched to the brick.
• Damp on a chimney breast or gable wall — often failed lead where the stack meets the roof, or water soaking down through a stack that has lost its pointing.
• Crumbling flaunching or a loose pot — the mortar bed holding the pots breaks up with frost. A flue that is no longer used can be capped with a vented cap so it stays dry and ventilated.
• A stack out of plumb — a leaning stack is taken down to sound masonry and rebuilt, reusing good original stone or brick.

Guide prices: repointing from £350, lead flashing from £450, a partial rebuild from £600, a full rebuild from £1,500, and scaffolding from £400. What you actually pay depends on access and on the condition we find, and it’s fixed in writing after a free survey; where a stack is hard to see from the ground, a free drone survey shows us its top before anyone climbs. See our chimney repair costs guide and chimney repairs page.

Adel-St John’s Conservation Area

Adel’s conservation area is small and centred on the Church of St John the Baptist, built around 1150 and listed Grade I by Historic England. Its official list entry describes coursed squared gritstone walls under stone slate roofs, with the west gable and bellcote rebuilt in 1838–39 by R. D. Chantrell. The area was first designated on 17 July 1974, and Leeds City Council reviewed and redesignated it on 2 November 2009, when it approved the Adel-St John’s Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan. Around the church are the former Rectory of 1652 (now Ashling House and Aisling Cottage), the listed Parish Hall built as stables and a coach house about 1766, and scattered farmhouses and cottages along Church Lane, Back Church Lane and Long Causeway.

The appraisal records regularly coursed sandstone or millstone grit walls with roofs of natural Welsh slate or stone slate, and pitched roofs usually topped with chimney stacks and clay pots. It names “poor choice of materials on the replacement of historic features” as one of the area’s issues.

Adel’s homes, roof by roof

Flat roofs, from 1930s modernism to garage extensions

The Design Statement picks out flat roofs as part of the 1930s modernist houses around Adel Lane, alongside curved metal windows and balconies. On a house like that the flat roof is part of the design, and replacing a tired covering with a modern membrane keeps the original lines. The Statement also records the 1972 bungalows on Stairfoot Walk, which were built with flat roofs that later had to be replaced with sloping ones because of the weather. Most flat roofs in Adel today are over garages, dormers and rear extensions on the post-war estates. Old felt fails at upstands and edge trims first, and standing water makes it worse. We repair where the deck is sound and re-cover where it isn’t; see flat roofing for the options.

Storm damage and fallen branches

Adel stands on high ground, so its more open streets take the full force of strong winds, and the appraisal notes mature trees standing very close to buildings, most of all around the churchyard and York Gate Garden. After a storm, check for slipped slates or tiles, lifted ridges, a loose chimney pot and damage from branches. We take emergency callouts 7 days a week: first we make the roof safe and watertight, then we give you a fixed written quote for the permanent repair. More on our emergency roof repairs page.

Roofing services in Adel

How a job runs

1. SurveyWe look at the roof in person, free, and use a free drone survey where a stack or roof can’t be seen safely from the ground.
2. Written priceA fixed quote that includes scaffolding, plus a note if the work may need conservation area or listed building consent.
3. The workMaterials matched to the house, the site kept tidy and photos of what we’ve done.
4. GuaranteeA 10-year written workmanship guarantee on major work, and we’re fully insured.

Useful before you call

Adel streets we cover

From Kirkstall (LS5) we cover Adel streets including Church Lane, Back Church Lane, Long Causeway, Adel Lane, Otley Road, New Adel Lane, Holt Lane, Holt Close, St Helen’s Lane, Sir George Martin Drive, Wayland Drive, Dunstarn Lane, Dunstarn Drive, Eastmoor Lane, Tile Lane, Kingsley Avenue, Gainsborough Avenue, Redesdale Gardens, Rothbury Gardens, Stairfoot Close, Mulberry Avenue, Adel Park Gardens and the surrounding streets of LS16.

Nearby areas we cover

See every area on our coverage map.