Industrial space in Cambridge is scarce, expensive and almost always in use. The city’s growth has been driven by labs and offices, but the estates that keep it running, the warehouses, workshops, trade counters and light-industrial units on the fringes, mostly date back decades and sit under large profiled metal roofs that are now showing their age. Replacing those roofs means disrupting occupiers who have nowhere convenient to move to, which is exactly why coating deserves a place on the options list.
Why scarce industrial stock changes the maths
When demand for units outstrips supply, keeping an existing building serviceable is worth more than usual. A sound, properly prepared coating system can add useful years to a tired but structurally healthy roof, protect the letting value of the unit, and defer the capital cost of replacement to a point of the owner’s choosing. It also matters to occupiers: a unit with a sound roof is a unit nobody is forced to empty while strip-and-replace works drag on overhead. For estates teams managing older stock around Cambridge, that is often the difference between a planned maintenance line and an unbudgeted emergency.
What we typically find up there
The defects on this generation of roofs are consistent. Cut-edge corrosion at sheet ends and laps is the most common: the factory finish stops at the cut, bare steel corrodes, and rust creeps back beneath the coating until it delaminates. Alongside it we find chalking and peeling topcoats, brittle rooflights, rusting fasteners and gutters in worse condition than the roof they drain. Each is manageable on its own; together, unaddressed, they shorten the roof’s life by years. Treating them as one programme, with preparation, edge treatment, gutter works, rooflight replacement and a full coating system, deals with the roof as a whole rather than as a series of patches.
Straight answers: the roofs we advise against coating
Not every roof should be coated, and we put that in writing when it applies. Widespread perforation, corrosion coming through from the underside, saturated insulation within built-up construction, or structural problems with purlins and fixings all rule a coating out, because the system would be hiding decay rather than preventing it. In those cases the survey report recommends repair or replacement and explains why, with photographs you can hand to a landlord, board or fund. An honest no at survey stage costs you nothing; a coating over a failed roof costs you twice.
How the process runs
Everything starts with an inspection and ends with evidence.
- Roof survey covering sheets, edges, laps, fixings, rooflights and gutters
- A written condition report with photographs and plain-English findings
- A specification matched to the roof’s actual condition, not a standard template
- Works carried out from roof level while the building stays in use
- Phased programmes for multi-let estates, agreed with occupiers
We are based in the South-East and work across England, so Cambridge sits well within normal coverage. If a roof on your estate is streaking rust at the sheet ends, the survey is the logical next step, and it is far cheaper than finding out the hard way.
