Many of Hounslow’s houses were standing long before Heathrow became one of the world’s busiest airports. Today, a local roofing company says that history matters, because the age of the borough’s homes, combined with aircraft overhead, can complicate everything from identifying roof damage to deciding who should foot the repair bill.
Stand in a back garden in Cranford when the wind is coming from the west and the pattern is remarkably predictable. Aircraft arrive roughly a minute apart, low over the rooftops and only a few miles from Heathrow’s runways. The airport is limited to 480,000 flights each year, around 1,300 a day, and aircraft approach over this part of west London on roughly seven days out of ten.
For most residents, the noise has become part of the background. Their roofs, however, can still show the effects of what’s happening above them.
Houses built before the airport
Large parts of Hounslow expanded rapidly between the two world wars. The Great West Road opened in 1925, factories appeared along the Golden Mile, and rows of semi-detached homes followed for the workers they attracted. Those properties were already occupied before Heathrow opened to civilian aviation in 1946.
The roofs on many of those houses have survived too. Traditional tiles were often laid over timber battens without the underlay that would be standard on many modern roofs. They were designed to withstand ordinary British weather, not the unusual conditions created by aircraft approaching close to ground level.
A roof approaching its ninth decade is also reaching an age when general deterioration becomes increasingly likely.
“The planes get the attention, and fair enough, they’re the interesting bit,” says Charlie, from Watertight Roof Repairs Hounslow. “But most weeks what we’re actually looking at is a roof that’s older than the airport and has just had enough.”
When aircraft movement becomes part of the weather
Aircraft generate rotating columns of air known as wake vortices. They are one reason aircraft have to maintain separation on approach. Usually, the vortices weaken and disappear before they reach the ground, but close to runway ends, where aircraft are lower, a vortex can occasionally retain enough force to dislodge roof tiles.
The effect can be highly localised. One property may lose tiles while neighbouring houses appear completely unaffected.
For an individual homeowner, such an event is unusual. Across the wider area, however, the issue has been significant enough for Heathrow to operate its Vortex Protection Scheme, which dates back to 1993. Heathrow says legal liability rests with airlines, while the airport covers verified repair costs itself. Homeowners do not pay for qualifying repairs. In areas closest to runway ends, where previous incidents have been concentrated, Heathrow also provides blanket protection and arranges preventative roof work.
The catch is the verification process. Heathrow appoints its own assessor, and the damage needs to be officially confirmed before it qualifies. That can leave roofers with an unusual instruction after an incident: prevent further water ingress if necessary, but don’t replace the damaged tiles before the airport has inspected them.
“It’s about the only job I know where the best advice can be ‘don’t let us fix it yet’,” Charlie says. “If it’s a vortex strike, the airport pays. If somebody’s tidied it all away first, that money’s gone.”
Who is actually responsible for the repair?
A damaged roof in Hounslow can fall into one of three broad categories. If Heathrow confirms a vortex strike, the airport handles the repair. Storm damage will generally be an insurance matter, subject to the terms of the policy and its excess. If the roof has simply reached the end of its useful life, the homeowner is responsible.
Misidentifying the cause can be expensive. An insurer may reject a claim if normal wear and tear is presented as storm damage. Equally, a homeowner could end up paying for repairs that should have been covered under Heathrow’s vortex arrangements.
For a roofing company, determining what actually happened can therefore be as important as carrying out the repair.
“Sometimes the honest answer is that it’s the airport’s job, not ours, and we lose that work,” Charlie says. “But people round here talk over the fence. You tell next door the truth and it saves them a lot of money, and that tends to come back round.”
Avoiding the doorstep repair rush
Roof problems can also attract another familiar sight: contractors offering to carry out work immediately after spotting something from the pavement. Trading Standards and Citizens Advice have long advised homeowners not to agree to building work on the doorstep, to obtain multiple quotations and to be cautious about anyone demanding an immediate decision.
Watertight says its approach is deliberately different. The company offers free surveys, photographs showing customers what has been found on the roof, written quotations and a ten-year workmanship guarantee.
“None of that’s clever,” says Charlie. “It’s just what people ask for after they’ve had the other sort of visit.”
What could a third runway mean for local roofs?
The debate over Heathrow expansion is continuing. The government has backed the airport’s expansion plans, while a draft Airports National Policy Statement has been before Parliament since June, with scrutiny scheduled to continue until 26 November. Heathrow has been targeting planning permission by 2029 and has said a new runway would not be operational until around 2039.
For roofers, the question is less about the runway itself and more about the flight paths it would create.
A north-western runway could introduce lower aircraft approaches over areas that currently experience aircraft at a greater distance.
“If it goes ahead, there’ll be roads that go from never thinking about this to living with it,” says Charlie. “Fifteen years sounds a long way off. It isn’t, if you’re putting a roof on this year and expecting it to still be there.”
Heathrow’s existing blanket vortex protection areas reflect locations where previous strikes have occurred. New approach paths would not necessarily have that same history, leaving affected streets facing an issue their roofs were never designed around.
Living beneath the same airport
Heathrow has become deeply embedded in life across Hounslow. It provides employment and economic activity, while aircraft noise is simply part of everyday life for many residents.
The houses themselves, of course, were built for another era. Their roofs were designed for the weather and conditions their builders understood, not for modern aviation passing overhead.
For local roofing businesses, that makes the job slightly different from roofing elsewhere in London. Most calls still concern ordinary ageing roofs. But occasionally, on a perfectly calm morning, a homeowner will report tiles scattered across the garden while the neighbouring property is untouched. In those cases, the first call may not be to the roofer at all. It may be to Heathrow.
