Roofing services
Emergency roofers in Peterborough
If water is coming into the house right now, the order of events matters. Make it safe, limit the damage, get it covered, then worry about the price.
The first hour
In roughly this order. None of it requires a roofer and all of it reduces what the damage ends up costing.
- Turn the electrics off in the affected area if water is anywhere near a light fitting, a downlight or a socket. Water tracks along cables. A ceiling rose filling with water is a genuine hazard, not a cosmetic one.
- Get everyone out from under a bulging ceiling. A plasterboard ceiling holding water bows first and then goes all at once, and it comes down with a lot of weight in it.
- Contain it. Buckets, towels, and move furniture and anything electrical out of the way. Lift carpets if you can, because a soaked carpet and underlay will hold water against the floor for weeks.
- Pierce a bulging ceiling deliberately. This feels wrong and it is right. A small hole made on purpose with a bucket underneath does far less damage than the whole ceiling collapsing, and it is what any roofer would tell you to do.
- Photograph everything before you tidy up. The damage, the water, the ceiling, the outside of the house, and anything in the garden that came off the roof. If there is an insurance claim in this, these photos are the claim.
- Then call. Not before, unless somebody is in danger.
Do not go on the roof
More people are hurt going up to look at a leak than are hurt by the leak. A wet roof, in wind, on a domestic ladder, in the dark, after a storm, is how serious accidents happen.
Look from a window, from the garden, or from a neighbour's upstairs window. Everything else can wait for somebody with the right equipment.
If you want the job routed to firms straight away, call 01733 808080 or flag it as an emergency in the quote form. Emergencies go out immediately rather than waiting in a queue.
What temporary cover actually is
The thing that stops the water on the night is almost never the repair. It is temporary cover, and understanding the difference stops you paying twice for the same job or accepting a bodge as a finished repair.
Tarpaulin and battens
A heavy duty tarpaulin dressed over the damaged area and held with timber battens, weighted or fixed so it cannot lift. Correctly done it is dressed over the ridge so water cannot run underneath it, and it is tensioned so it does not flap. A tarpaulin that flaps for a week will take more tiles off than the storm did.
This is the standard emergency answer and it will hold for weeks, not years.
Shrink wrap
A heat shrunk sheet, used for larger areas and longer durations, typically where a roof has to stay covered for months while an insurance claim is settled or a rebuild is arranged. More expensive, considerably more robust, and it does not flap.
A holding repair
Swapping in a couple of tiles, dressing a temporary flashing, or patching a felt flat roof. Where the defect is small and accessible, the emergency visit and the permanent repair can be the same visit, and a good firm will tell you that on the phone.
What temporary cover is not
It is not a bucket of bitumen paint slapped over a cracked tile, it is not expanding foam, and it is not flashing tape stuck across a chimney in the rain. Those get sold as emergency repairs at emergency prices and they make the permanent repair harder and more expensive, because somebody has to remove them first.
On a Collyweston stone slate or natural slate roof, bituminous coatings are actively destructive. They ruin the slates for reuse and trap moisture in a roof designed to breathe.
What a fair emergency price looks like
Emergency work costs more than planned work and it should. Somebody is dropping what they are doing, travelling out in bad weather, and working in conditions nobody would choose. What it should not be is open ended.
| Emergency work | Guide range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Call-out and inspection, working hours | £90 to £180 | Often credited against the repair if you go ahead |
| Call-out, evening, weekend or bank holiday | £150 to £300 | A premium is legitimate. An unlimited hourly rate is not |
| Fit temporary tarpaulin cover | £200 to £500 | Area covered, roof height, wind conditions on the day |
| Shrink wrap a larger area | £600 to £1,800 | Usually where cover is needed for months, not weeks |
| Same-visit small permanent repair | £150 to £350 | Same as the standard repair range if it can be done there and then |
Guides, not quotes. Get the call-out figure and the hourly or day rate agreed on the phone before anyone sets off, even at two in the morning. A firm that will not give you a number over the phone is one to keep ringing past.
Two practical points. First, ask whether the call-out fee is credited against the permanent repair, because with many firms it is. Second, expect the permanent repair to be quoted separately and in daylight. Nobody can properly diagnose a roof at midnight in the rain, and a firm that quotes you a full re-roof by torchlight is not diagnosing anything.
When that daylight quote arrives, check it against the ranges in the roof repair cost guide and the full Peterborough cost table. An emergency is exactly the situation in which people overpay, because there is no time to shop around and the pressure is on.
The knock on the door the morning after
This needs saying plainly, because it happens across Peterborough after every serious gale and it costs people thousands.
After a storm, people appear. They knock, they say they were working on a roof down the road, they say they noticed your ridge looks unsafe or your flashing has lifted, and they offer to sort it while they are here. Sometimes they offer to go up and have a look for free.
What follows is a familiar sequence. They go up. They come down with a photograph of something alarming, which may or may not be your roof. The job grows while they are up there. The price is cash, or a large deposit up front, and it needs deciding now.
- Nobody can assess your roof from the pavement. The opening line is already untrue.
- No legitimate firm needs a decision today, and none of them need cash.
- A large deposit before any materials are ordered is not normal on a domestic roof repair.
- A mobile number and no address, no company registration and no insurance certificate means there is nobody to go back to.
- Work sold by scaring you about safety is sold by fear, not by diagnosis.
If somebody is at your door, the answer is that you are getting other quotes. You do not owe them a conversation. If they have already done work you did not agree to, do not pay cash on the spot, and be aware that contracts agreed at your doorstep normally carry a 14 day cancellation right in law, which traders working this way are supposed to tell you about in writing and generally do not.
The full version of this is in the storm damage guide, alongside how insurance claims actually work and what to photograph. How to choose a roofer covers the questions that separate a real firm from a good story.
Roofing firms we have checked
We would rather show you a short list we can stand behind than a long one we cannot. Emergency enquiries are routed to firms that cover your postcode and are set up to respond quickly.
Big Red Roofing
A Cambridgeshire roofing contractor trading from Wisbech with a 50-mile working radius that takes in the whole of Peterborough. Domestic pitched and flat roofing, repairs, chimneys, fascias and guttering.
- Limited company registered in England and Wales, no. 17344311
- Trades from 16 Regal Road, Wisbech, PE13 2RQ
- Covers Peterborough, the Ortons, Hampton, Werrington and the surrounding villages
- Pitched roofs, flat roofs, repairs, chimneys, fascias, soffits and guttering
We list a firm here only once we have checked that it is a real trading business, that it is registered where it says it is, and that it genuinely works in this part of Cambridgeshire. We do not publish star ratings we cannot evidence, and we do not rank firms by who pays most. If you would like your firm considered, get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
Water actively entering the house, a ceiling sagging under the weight of water, tiles or a section of roof that have come off and left the structure open, or anything loose at height that could fall on a person, a car or a pavement.
A damp patch that has been slowly spreading for six months is urgent but it is not an emergency, and you will get a better price treating it as a normal repair. See roof repairs.
Enquiries flagged as emergencies are passed to firms immediately rather than queued, and firms that take emergency work generally respond fastest.
Be realistic about the night of a major storm. When a whole city is calling at once, every roofer in Peterborough is triaging, and a house that is open to the weather goes ahead of a slow drip. Get temporary containment sorted inside while you wait.
As a July 2026 guide including VAT, expect £90 to £180 for a working hours call-out and £150 to £300 outside them, with temporary tarpaulin cover typically £200 to £500 on top.
Agree the call-out fee and the rate on the phone before anyone travels, and ask whether the call-out is credited against the permanent repair.
Sudden damage caused by a storm, an impact or a falling tree is normally covered by buildings insurance. Gradual deterioration, wear and tear and poor maintenance are normally not, and insurers do distinguish between them.
Contact your insurer before permanent work starts, keep every photograph, and keep receipts for emergency work, because reasonable costs to prevent further damage are usually recoverable even when the wider claim is disputed.
From a firm you approached, yes, that is a normal survey. From somebody who knocked on your door uninvited, no.
Once a stranger is on your roof you have no way of knowing what state it was in before they went up, and the photograph they come down with proves nothing about your house.
Yes, and you should. Insurers expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, and leaving a roof open while a claim is assessed can prejudice the claim rather than help it.
For a long wait, shrink wrap is usually the better option than a tarpaulin. It costs more up front and it does not fail in the next gale.
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