Wareing McKenna

Wareing McKenna Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Wareing McKenna, Roofing service, Unit 1a, Docks link, B M B Industrial Park, Wallasey.

We carry out new roof installations and roofing repairs across the Wirral including Wallasey, Birkenhead, West Kirkby, Hoylake, Heswell and all the surrounding areas in the region.

A good roof handover is more than a look from the pavement.It links the work you agreed with what was actually done, plu...
05/10/2026

A good roof handover is more than a look from the pavement.

It links the work you agreed with what was actually done, plus any completion documents, warranty terms, and maintenance advice. Progress photos are a great addition when each one is labelled with the roof area and stage.

If anything is still outstanding, a written note with an update date makes it easy to follow through. And please leave close inspection to the roofing team, who can show you the details safely.

Our guide covers the checks and documents worth keeping after a roof replacement: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/roof-replacement-handover-the-checks-and-documents-to-keep/

Email [email protected] for roofing enquiries across Wirral.

Does the ceiling stay dry through some wet days, then leak when the wind changes?That pattern is worth recording. Note w...
28/09/2026

Does the ceiling stay dry through some wet days, then leak when the wind changes?

That pattern is worth recording. Note where moisture first appears, whether it starts during or after the rain, and which side of the house is taking the weather. Photographs from a safe indoor position can help.

The next step is an inspection that explains the evidence, including relevant roof junctions and drainage. Ask what was found, what could not be checked, and how the repair proposal addresses the suspected route.

Intermittent leak guidance: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/a-roof-leak-only-when-the-wind-blows-what-an-inspection-needs-to-check/

The tiles look fine. The ridge line runs true. So why is there damp in the loft - again?Every tiled roof is a three-laye...
24/09/2026

The tiles look fine. The ridge line runs true. So why is there damp in the loft - again?

Every tiled roof is a three-layer system, and the two layers you can't see - the battens and the underlay - can fail behind perfectly presentable tiles. The giveaway: tiles that keep slipping in different places, and a roof that needs attention every winter.

Our new article covers how the hidden layers fail, the signs from the loft hatch and the ground, and when sectional repair vs re-battening is the honest answer.

Read it here: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/roof-battens-and-underlay-problems-that-can-hide-beneath-sound-looking-tiles/

A roofing project is easier to prepare for when the practical questions are settled early. Where will materials be deliv...
16/09/2026

A roofing project is easier to prepare for when the practical questions are settled early. Where will materials be delivered? Can the driveway still be used? Which entrance needs to remain available?

Discuss the answers with your contractor before the start date. Explain narrow gates, shared access and any particular household needs. Access equipment and working areas should be planned around the property and the job, rather than assumptions about how a repair normally works.

Ask which ordinary belongings need moving from below the work. Do not climb onto the roof, enter an unsafe loft or use scaffolding to check progress. Keep children, pets and visitors away from restricted areas.

Neighbours may need factual information about arrangements that affect them, and any access permission should be settled in advance. Agree a contact route for updates and for discussing unexpected findings.

Wareing & McKenna carries out roof repairs and installations across Wirral and surrounding areas. Preparation also means knowing what information you will receive at handover and how the agreed job will be explained.

More about preparing your home for roof work: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/preparing-for-roof-work-access-your-home-and-the-neighbours/

If a ridge tile has ever come off your roof in a gale, it was not really the wind that did it.The ridge caps the apex wh...
10/09/2026

If a ridge tile has ever come off your roof in a gale, it was not really the wind that did it.

The ridge caps the apex where two roof slopes meet, and the verge is the finished edge at a gable. On most older Wirral homes both were bedded in sand and cement. That method worked, and on a sheltered roof it could last thirty years. On an exposed gable facing the water it very often did not.

The reason is simple. Mortar is rigid and the roof beneath it moves every single day, with temperature, with moisture, and in wind. Mortar has no capacity to absorb that, so it develops hairline cracks. Water gets in, freezes, expands and opens them further, and that freeze-thaw cycle runs dozens of times over a winter. Hairline crack becomes visible gap, becomes loose section, becomes a ridge tile with nothing holding it down.

A dry fixed system takes the mortar out of the equation. Each ridge tile is mechanically screwed to a batten along the apex, a ventilated roll seals the junction with a flexible material that moves with the roof, and dry verge units close the gable edge. There is no bedding to re-bed, wind resistance is considerably better, and the ventilated ridge gives warm moist air a route out of the loft.

This is also where the standards have gone. Ridge and hip tiles are now required to be mechanically fixed rather than held by mortar alone, so any competent re-ridge done today should meet that.

Worth checking from the ground: the ridge line should be straight, the mortar bed should be continuous, and there should be no grey debris turning up in your gutters. From the loft on a bright day, daylight along the apex tells you the rest.

We re-ridge and re-verge roofs across Wallasey, Birkenhead, Hoylake, West Kirkby and Heswall. Free survey, zero deposit, 10-year guarantee.

Read the full details here: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/ridge-tiles-and-dry-verge-systems-why-mortar-fails-on-wirral-roofs/

Water coming through the ceiling is one of the most stressful things a home can do to you. It is also, nearly always, fa...
08/09/2026

Water coming through the ceiling is one of the most stressful things a home can do to you. It is also, nearly always, far less serious than it feels in the moment. A ceiling leak is usually a small volume of water finding its way through one specific fault, and that fault is findable and fixable.

Our new guide walks through the judgement we apply on the phone every week. What genuinely counts as an emergency: active water spreading, anything hanging loose above where people walk, or a visible breach. What can safely wait a few days, like a single slipped tile with nothing showing inside. And the six calm steps to take in the first hour, all of them at floor level, none of them involving a ladder.

It also explains the difference between making a roof safe and repairing it properly, because those are two different jobs, and how our callout process works from triage on the phone to a permanent repair with matched materials. As with everything we do, the inspection and quotation are free, we take no deposit, and the work carries a 10-year guarantee. Same day and weekend appointments are available across Wallasey, Birkenhead, Hoylake, West Kirkby, Heswall and the wider Wirral.

If your roof is doing something it should not, or you just want a nagging doubt settled before the weather turns, the full guide is here: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/emergency-roof-repairs-in-wirral-what-counts-as-urgent-and-what-happens-when-you-call/

Now is the window. Almost every roof we attend in December was showing the same fault in September, and the difference b...
27/08/2026

Now is the window. Almost every roof we attend in December was showing the same fault in September, and the difference between the two is a half day repair on a dry roof versus an emergency call out with water already coming through a ceiling.

A few reasons to get it looked at before the end of October. There are still dry days long enough to open a roof up and close it again properly. Mortar, adhesives and membranes all behave predictably in mild weather. And once the storms start, roofers and scaffolders are largely doing reactive work, so booking now means picking your date instead of waiting behind everyone whose roof failed on the same night.

What you can check yourself from the ground. Look along the tile field for anything out of line, slipped, cracked or missing. Look along the ridge, which should be straight with a continuous mortar bed, and treat grey debris in the gutters as a sign it is breaking down. Check the junctions at chimneys, abutting walls, dormers and valleys, because that is where the majority of leaks begin. Then the roofline: gutters sitting at an angle, joints dripping, staining down the wall beneath, soft or flaking fascia boards.

The single most valuable job is clearing the gutters, and the timing matters. Do it once most of the leaf fall is done, or twice if you have heavy tree cover. A blocked gutter sends water down the masonry rather than into the drain, and a wet Wirral winter of that saturates the wall until it shows up as damp inside.

One thing worth understanding about wind. It does not start in the middle of a roof, it finds edges. A verge, the ridge line, the eaves, a lifted flashing, or a tile already standing slightly proud. That is why a loose ridge tile is genuinely urgent rather than cosmetic.

Our autumn inspection covers the full tile field, ridge, hips and verge, all lead work and junctions, the complete roofline and drainage, and the loft from inside. You get a written report with photographs setting out what needs doing before winter, what can reasonably wait until spring, and what is simply worth watching. Priced, with no obligation.

Free inspection, zero deposit, 10-year guarantee.

Read more: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/getting-your-wirral-roof-ready-for-autumn-the-checks-worth-doing/

If you have a roof leak, the tiles are probably not the problem.The large majority of leaks we attend start at a junctio...
11/08/2026

If you have a roof leak, the tiles are probably not the problem.

The large majority of leaks we attend start at a junction: where the roof meets a chimney stack, where a lower roof runs into a taller wall, around a dormer, or in a valley where two roof planes drain together. All of those are weatherproofed with lead flashing, and the flashing fails long before the surrounding tiles do.

This is genuinely useful to know, because it changes what you ask a roofer for. Someone quoting to re-tile a whole slope when the actual fault is a cracked chimney apron has sold you an expensive repair that will not fix anything.

A tiled slope is forgiving. Every unit overlaps the one below, so the geometry sheds water and nothing needs to be watertight in isolation. A junction has no such redundancy. It is one continuous barrier, and a single split or lifted edge lets water straight in. These are also the points where thermal movement concentrates, since masonry and timber move at different rates and the lead absorbs that difference every day for decades.

Signs to watch for: a damp patch on an upstairs ceiling near a chimney breast, staining on the chimney breast inside the loft, lead that has curled or pulled out of a mortar joint, white salt deposits on internal brickwork, and moss built up in a valley channel. A leak that only appears in certain conditions is not a minor one, it is a directional fault.

One thing you can check from the ground. Cement smeared where the roof meets the stack, instead of proper lead, is a patch rather than a repair. Cement is rigid, the junction is not, and it cracks every time.
Free inspection, zero deposit, 10-year guarantee.

Read more in our blog: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/lead-flashing-and-valleys-where-roof-leaks-actually-start/

If the flat roof over your garage or extension is patched, ponding or simply past its best, it is worth understanding wh...
07/08/2026

If the flat roof over your garage or extension is patched, ponding or simply past its best, it is worth understanding what modern rubber roofing actually offers before you commit to anything.

EPDM is a single sheet of synthetic rubber laid over the deck as one continuous piece. On most domestic roofs across the Wirral the entire covering arrives as one piece, which means no joins anywhere across the main roof area. Given that the overwhelming majority of flat roof leaks begin at a seam, removing the seams removes the most common point of failure.

The membrane itself is only 1.2mm to 1.5mm thick, which sounds slight until you understand how differently rubber behaves from a rigid covering. It stretches, recovers, and tolerates the constant expansion and contraction a flat roof goes through every day. Rigid materials fatigue under that movement and crack. Rubber moves with it.

The honest part is this: the sheet is rarely what decides whether you get thirty years or fifteen. It is the deck underneath, the falls, and the detailing at the upstands and edges. A deck quietly taking water for five years may need most of its boarding replaced, and that is only knowable once the old covering is off. Any quotation worth trusting flags that as a possibility rather than pretending it cannot happen.

Watch out for two things. Laying new rubber over the old covering hides whatever the deck is doing and guarantees the new roof inherits every existing fault. And a roof assembled from mismatched adhesives and trims is not a guaranteed system, whatever the paperwork says.

Wareing and McKenna Roofing has been fitting flat roofs across Wallasey, Birkenhead, Hoylake, West Kirkby and Heswall for over 25 years. Zero deposit, pay on completion, 10-year guarantee.

Read more: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/epdm-rubber-flat-roofing-a-straight-guide-for-wirral-homeowners/

Most of a British summer is kind to a roof, but the odd flash thunderstorm or windy day still catches one out. Did a sum...
28/07/2026

Most of a British summer is kind to a roof, but the odd flash thunderstorm or windy day still catches one out. Did a summer storm just roll across the Wirral? Your roof might look fine now, but that is exactly the problem. A single tile lifted by the wind or a gutter overwhelmed by the downpour can let rain track into the roof for weeks, so the first you know of it is a brown stain on a bedroom ceiling.

After heavy rain or a windy spell, do a safe check from the ground for slipped or missing tiles, overflowing gutters, and loose fascias, then take a torch into the loft to look for damp felt or wet insulation. Please do not climb onto a wet or windy roof, as storm-loosened tiles are not safe to stand on.

We offer same-day and weekend storm repairs across Wallasey, Birkenhead, Hoylake, West Kirkby, and Heswall, with a free inspection of everything you cannot safely reach. Zero deposit, payment on completion, and a 10-year guarantee. Not sure how your roof fared in the last downpour? Book a free look before the next one.

Read more in our blog: https://wareingmckenna.co.uk/summer-storm-roof-damage-what-to-check-after-heavy-rain-and-high-winds-in-wirral/

Address

Unit 1a, Docks Link, B M B Industrial Park
Wallasey
CH443EQ

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday 8:30am - 5pm
Friday 8:30am - 5pm

Telephone

+441516300909

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