When your roof springs a leak at the worst possible moment - Friday evening with a bank holiday ahead, or during a prolonged storm when every roofer in Surrey is stretched to capacity - the waiting can feel interminable. You know professional help is coming, but in the meantime water is dripping into your home and you want to do something.
LT Leadwork & Roofing provides emergency response across Reigate, Epsom, Dorking, Banstead and Leatherhead - while you wait for us, this guide covers exactly what you can safely do to limit damage, and what to leave well alone.
The Cardinal Rule: Protect the Interior, Not the Exterior
Let's be clear from the start: in almost all circumstances you should not go onto your roof to attempt repairs. Roofs are dangerous at the best of times, and a damaged roof during bad weather is exponentially more hazardous - professional roofers have training, experience and safety equipment that make the difference, and without these the risk of serious injury is simply too high. Every year people are seriously injured attempting DIY roof repairs, and falls from height remain one of the most common causes of accidental death in the UK. A few tiles or some water damage to plaster can be repaired; broken bones and head injuries cannot.
Instead, focus your efforts on managing water once it's entered your home. This is where you can make a genuine difference without risking your safety, and it's often where the most costly damage occurs anyway, since water dripping onto carpets, furniture and electronics causes far more expense than the roof repair itself in many cases.
Managing Active Water Ingress
When water is actively coming in, your first priority is directing and containing it - place buckets or bowls under drips, prioritising a drip onto a hard floor over one soaking into carpet or electrical equipment. For larger ingress spread over an area, plastic sheeting or even heavy-duty bin liners arranged between rafters can funnel water towards a collection point. If water is pooling on a ceiling and causing it to bow downward, placing a container below and carefully puncturing the lowest point with a screwdriver relieves the pressure in a controlled way, which is far better than an uncontrolled collapse that spreads water damage dramatically - just stand to the side, not directly below, when you do this.
Move valuables first. Furniture, rugs and electronics should be moved away from affected areas immediately - even if you can't stop water entering, you can stop it ruining your possessions.
The Loft Space: What You Can and Can't Do
If you have safe access to your loft and the leak source is there, you may be able to take useful action, but only under the right conditions - never enter if water is near electrical installations, if the ceiling or structure seems unstable, or if you can't move safely on the joists. If it is safe, position containers directly at the ingress point rather than just below visible ceiling drips, since water often runs along rafters before dripping through elsewhere, and note or photograph anything you can see of the source, such as daylight or obvious felt damage, since this information is valuable for your roofer.
What you shouldn't do in the loft is try to push tiles back into place from inside, attempt to patch felt from below, or overreach into unstable positions - move carefully on joists only, remembering that loft insulation hides the ceiling plasterboard beneath it, so stepping between joists means stepping through your ceiling.
Ground-Level Actions After Storm Damage
If storm damage has left tiles or debris in your garden, there's plenty you can safely do from ground level. Collect any fallen tiles, since they may be reusable and provide useful evidence for insurance, photograph damage you can see both on the ground and up at the roof using zoom rather than climbing, and clear any debris blocking drains or gutters that's reachable without a ladder, since blocked drainage during heavy rain backs water up and can cause additional leaks. If a branch is resting on your roof but not penetrating it, leave it for professionals unless it's creating immediate danger, since removing heavy debris yourself risks further damage and personal injury.
Our advice: if you have genuinely safe, ground-level access - not improvised ladders, not climbing through windows, not in bad weather - a temporary tarpaulin weighted with timber battens rather than rocks can be effective, but if you're not confident, wait for us. A few more hours is always better than creating additional problems.
What Definitely Not to Attempt
Some DIY "repairs" we've seen have caused more damage than the original problem. Replacing tiles from outside requires understanding the interlock system and appropriate lifting tools, and incorrectly replaced tiles often cause additional leaks, while tubes of "roof repair" sealant from DIY stores are rarely appropriate for serious repairs - at best temporary, at worst masking a problem while trapping moisture that causes rot. Walking on any roof, damaged or not, risks cracking tiles or puncturing membranes, professionals use crawl boards for exactly this reason, and working anywhere near power lines or using heat or open flames to "seal" felt are both genuinely dangerous practices that should never be attempted by anyone without the relevant training.
Documenting for Insurance and Staying Safe
While managing the immediate situation, remember to document everything - photograph visible damage inside and out, note the time, date and weather conditions, and keep any debris such as fallen tiles as evidence. Your insurance policy likely covers reasonable costs to prevent further damage, which is exactly what these temporary measures are, and our storm damage and insurance guide covers the claims process in more detail. If water has entered near electrical installations, turn off power to the affected circuits, and if a significant portion of your roof has failed and the property isn't safely habitable, consider temporary alternative accommodation - your policy may cover this, and it's never worth the risk of staying somewhere with compromised structural integrity.
When Professional Help Arrives
When your roofer arrives, point out what you've observed and done - the location of leaks, anything you noted in the loft, and any temporary measures taken - since this information speeds up assessment considerably. Be prepared for emergency repair and permanent repair to be different things: emergency work focuses on making your property weatherproof, while permanent repair may need different conditions or materials. For more detail on what that process typically looks like, see our guide on roof repair timescales.
If you're dealing with a roof emergency in Surrey, call us on 07566 234868. While you're waiting, focus on the safe interior measures described above and leave the roof itself to us - we'll be there as quickly as we safely can.
If you'd like to know more about how we approach this kind of work, visit our Roofing Repairs service page for full details, example photos and FAQs.
Need help now? See our emergency roofer service. You may also find our guide to why a roof leaks only in heavy rain or wind useful.
See it in practice: read our case study on an emergency repair after roof tiles were stolen.
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