The buildings here
Victorian and Edwardian red brick through terraces off Harrogate Road, Stainbeck Lane and Regent Street, larger villas around the conservation area near Town Street, and interwar semis towards Moortown. Welsh slate roofs with rear back additions and shared valley gutters.
The terrace pattern here
Chapel Allerton is built mostly of through terraces, which means a main roof running parallel to the street and a narrower back addition projecting into the yard. That shape gives you three roof problem areas rather than one.
The main slope is straightforward slate, usually Welsh, nailed to battens with no underlay. The outrigger is a smaller slope at a lower level. And where your outrigger sits alongside the neighbour’s, there is a valley gutter running between them back to the main roof.
That valley is the single most common leak we attend to in LS7. It is a narrow lead or GRP channel that takes water from two slopes, it fills with moss and leaf litter, and once it holds water it works its way under the slate edge and into the boards below. By the time it shows on a bedroom ceiling the timber underneath is usually soft.
Chimneys on the boundary
Terrace stacks here sit on the party wall, serving flues from both houses. That has two consequences. First, a repair only half done leaves water getting in from the neighbour’s side. Second, work that involves cutting into or taking down a shared stack falls under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, so notice may be required.
We survey both sides of a shared stack from the scaffold and say plainly what the whole thing needs. It is then your decision how to approach the neighbour, and we are happy to provide a quote in a form that can be split.
Access, ginnels and scaffold
The streets off Harrogate Road and around Regent Street are tight. Rear access is often through a shared ginnel too narrow for anything wider than a wheelbarrow, so material goes over the top from the front scaffold. Where scaffold has to stand on the footway we get the Leeds City Council highways licence in place before the wagon is booked.
Skips are the other consideration. On streets with no off road parking we look at a permit for a skip on the highway, or we use a grab wagon and load direct where the job is small enough.
Trees, moss and north facing slopes
The older parts around Town Street and the villas near the conservation area carry a lot of mature planting. Rear slopes that face north and sit under a canopy hold moss all year. Moss holds water against the slate, works into the laps, and washes down to block the valley and the gutter. It is worth clearing and it is worth doing before autumn rather than after the first blocked outlet.
What matters locally
Shared valleys between back additions
Where two rear outriggers meet, the valley gutter between them belongs to both houses. They silt up, hold water against the slate edge and rot the boards under the lead.
Party wall chimney stacks
Most stacks here straddle the boundary and serve flues from both houses, so repointing or rebuilding usually needs the neighbour on board and sometimes a Party Wall notice.
Chapel Allerton conservation area
The area around Town Street and the older villas is designated, so material matching is expected on visible slopes and we check the address with Leeds City Council planning first.
Tight terraced streets and ginnels
Streets off Harrogate Road are narrow with limited parking. Scaffold and skips need planning ahead, and rear access is often only through a shared ginnel.
Jobs we do most often in Chapel Allerton
- Renewing lead valley gutters between rear back additions
- Repointing and rebuilding party wall chimney stacks
- Refixing slipped Welsh slates on nail sick slopes
- Full re-roofs on through terraces including the outrigger
- Flat roof recovers on rear extensions and kitchen additions