What the local weather actually gives you
The Met Office climate averages for Manston, covering 1991 to 2020, give a published record from inside Thanet. Manston averages about 613 mm of rain a year, 110.05 days with 1 mm or more of rain, 21.43 days of air frost and a mean wind of 9.86 knots, rising to 11.21 knots in January. Treat them as long-run averages for one station and not as a forecast for any street.
Read plainly, that is a lot of days that are not wet. Out of 365 days, the 110 at Manston with 1 mm or more of rain leave about 255 under that mark, though wet days arrive in runs and not evenly. Frost on about 21 days a year matters more for particular coverings than for the job as a whole.
Wind is the other limit. Lifting sheets, boards or rolls of membrane in a stiff wind is slow and unsafe, and a day with a high wind can lose a morning even when it is dry. Because a garage roof covers little ground, a short dry window achieves more here than on a house.
Which coverings mind the cold and which do not
Garage roof coverings differ in how they behave when it is cold or damp.
| Covering | Winter issue | Planning point |
|---|---|---|
| Torch-on felt | Damp deck, cold laps | Dry deck first |
| EPDM | Adhesive and surface | Dry, clean bond |
| GRP | Resin cure | Dry, above minimum |
| Profiled sheets | Wind on large sheets | Calm day to lift |
The manufacturer's data sheet fixes the minimum temperature and surface condition for each adhesive, resin or membrane, and the work follows it. If the condition is not met on the day, the covering waits, even if the old one is already off.
That wait is why the order of work matters, and why a roofer who rushes a bond onto a damp deck is storing up a failure. Take off only what can be covered by the evening, and leave the rest for the next dry spell. Check the forecast the night before and again at breakfast, because a front can arrive early. Felt, EPDM and GRP are all explained on our felt garage roof and EPDM garage roof pages.
Keeping the garage dry while the roof is open
The biggest winter risk is not the cold. It is leaving a deck open when rain arrives. A garage roof job is arranged so that the deck is never exposed longer than it can be covered.
Temporary cover is how that is managed. Sheeting is fixed over the open area when the light fades or rain threatens, held down so that wind cannot lift it, and taken off again when work resumes. Stored contents can be sheeted or moved before work starts, which is worth doing whichever covering is going on.
Wet boards are the other thing to watch. A deck that has soaked up water cannot take a bonded or torch-on covering until it has dried, and a deck that is already soft may need replacing. We check it as the old covering comes away, and you hear what we found before the next step.
On an asbestos cement roof the sheets are kept damp while they are handled anyway, so light rain matters less than wind, which makes large fragile sheets hard to lower under control. Whether it is safe to lift them in winter is decided by a survey and a plan, and our asbestos garage roof removal page explains the method.
Booking a winter job sensibly
Garages do not need to wait for spring if the roof is failing. A roof that is leaking in January gets worse by April, and the contents are at risk in the meantime. A planned winter job is better than a repair done in a storm.
Some points make the job go more smoothly:
- Clear the garage or agree what can be left under cover.
- Settle the day after the forecast, not before, because a covering that needs dry conditions cannot be laid in the rain.
- Agree what happens if the weather turns, including who covers the deck and when work resumes.
- Check whether the roof is asbestos cement before booking anything.
If the leak is urgent, a make-safe with temporary cover can come first, and the replacement can wait for the right days. Send us photos and tell us what the garage holds. After our visit you receive one written total price, with the weather plan spelled out beside it.
The garage and asbestos roofs page lists the coverings we fit.
