A homeowner on one of Barrow-in-Furness’s Victorian terraced streets needed a complete roof replacement. The property — a two-storey mid-terrace house built in the 1890s from local red brick with a Westmorland slate roof — had been losing slates for years, and the bitumen felt beneath had perished entirely. A full strip-and-re-slate was the only practical option, and the roofer needed scaffold access along the full front and rear elevations from ground level to above the ridge.
Mid-terrace properties in Barrow present specific scaffold challenges. There is no side access, the front elevation sits directly on the pavement, and the rear is reached through a narrow back yard with a passage barely wider than a scaffold board. The neighbouring properties on both sides had to be respected throughout — no scaffold could encroach onto their frontage, and no debris could fall onto their roofs or yards. This is typical domestic roofing scaffold work across Barrow’s extensive Victorian terraced housing stock.
We erected independent scaffolding to both the front and rear elevations, each rising to above ridge height with working platforms at eaves level. The independent design was essential on a terraced property — it stands clear of the building face and avoids the need for through-ties into the party walls shared with the neighbours. Loading bays were positioned on both elevations for the roofer’s material flow.
On the front elevation, a pedestrian canopy protected the pavement below. On the rear, the scaffold was designed with a minimal footprint to fit within the narrow yard, using a single-bay width configuration that still provided a compliant working platform for the roofer. Chimney access was integrated into the rear scaffold for the party-wall stack, which needed repointing as part of the roof programme. Debris netting was fitted on both elevations to contain slate fragments during the strip phase.
Rear access was the main logistical constraint. The back yard is reached through a covered passage only 900mm wide, which meant standard-length scaffold tubes could not be carried through. We specified shorter tube lengths for the rear scaffold and planned the erection sequence to position the longest components first, before the passage became obstructed by the growing structure. All rear scaffold materials were hand-carried through the passage — no crane or hoist access was available from the back lane.
The front elevation sits directly on a Barrow residential street with on-street parking. We coordinated with the homeowner to keep the parking spaces directly outside clear on erection and strike days, and we erected the front scaffold early morning before the street became fully parked. The scaffold was confined precisely to the property’s frontage width, with boards cut flush to the party wall lines on each side. This kind of tight-tolerance terraced work is one of our most frequent domestic scaffold jobs across Barrow and the wider Furness peninsula.
The scaffold was erected in a single day — front elevation in the morning, rear in the afternoon. The roofer completed the full strip-and-re-slate in three weeks, including new felt, battens, Westmorland slates, lead valleys and chimney flashings. No debris fell onto neighbouring properties, the pavement remained safe throughout, and the scaffold was struck cleanly after a final inspection confirmed the roof was complete. The homeowner now has a watertight roof that should last another century.
Call 07415331135 to discuss scaffolding for your terraced house project. We specialise in tight-access terrace work. Or contact us through our contact page. Find out more about us.
