Why Preston farms need a survey first
Preston sits at the heart of Lancashire farming country, with dairy and mixed holdings spreading out towards Chorley, Leyland and the Ribble Valley. That means a lot of livestock buildings, parlours, cubicle sheds and big general-purpose barns, plus the grain and fodder stores that go with mixed enterprises. The Lancashire climate adds its own pressure: high rainfall and long damp spells push moisture into laps, gutters and the underside of metal roofs, and condensation inside busy livestock buildings keeps the structure wet for months at a time.
We start every agricultural job around Preston the same way, with a survey. Coatings only make sense on the right buildings, and the only way to know which is to get up on the roof and look.
The building stock we see
Across this part of Lancashire we coat profiled steel and fibre-cement roofs on barns and stores, cladding on machinery and implement sheds, and the walls of dairy and beef buildings. Older holdings near Preston still carry plenty of legacy metal that has corroded at the laps, plus fibre-cement sheets that are sound in places and brittle in others. A coating can extend the working life of sound metal and lift a tired, algae-darkened roof, but it is not a structural repair.
Repair, coat or replace
We will not coat a roof that needs replacing. If sheets are perforated, fixings have failed, or fibre-cement is cracked and porous, a coating hides the problem rather than solving it. On many Preston farms the honest answer is a mix: repair the worst bays, coat the sound ones, and budget to replace a building that has reached the end. Asbestos-cement is the part that needs most care. It was widely used on agricultural roofs of a certain age, and the rules on disturbing it are strict. Where a sheet is in good condition, encapsulation may be appropriate. Where it is damaged, the right route is licensed removal, not paint.
- Perforation and pitting on metal sheets and at the laps
- Brittle, cracked or porous fibre-cement
- Loose, missing or corroded fixings
- Blocked or rotting gutters feeding water back into the structure
Planning around the farm year
Dairy buildings rarely empty, so timing and access take thought. We work around milking routines, housing and turnout, and we tackle grain and fodder stores while they are clear. The aim is a programme that fits the Preston farming year rather than fighting it, spread across seasons if that suits the holding and the cash flow better than one big push.
What you get from us
A clear report on each building: what is sound, what needs repair, what is a coating candidate, and what would be money better spent on replacement. No pressure to coat everything, and no quote pulled out of thin air. For farms in and around Preston the survey is free, and you decide what happens next.
