Spray-foam removal & roof remediation · Cotterell Green & the Weald frith · Since 2019
The foam was the easy part. We remove the hard part.
Rakeout strips botched spray foam out of roofs that surveyors will no longer lend against, vacuum every flake of it, and reinsulates with materials the valuer can see through — then retests the roof and writes the lender letter. The foam took a day to spray. Undoing it properly is the trade you are looking at.
The Green & the frith, 2025 — 2026
Roofs we’ve given back
Six rake-outs from last season, photographed at the retest. What you are looking at under each caption is a mortgage that works again — the number the letter carriers care about is the one the owners care about.
Rates, printed
The rake card
Remediation is priced like demolition with a certificate at the end: the square-foot rate covers the rake and the vacuum, the reinsulation is separate because roofs differ, and the retest with the lender letter is inside every number. The $340 survey is credited in full against any rake we then do.
Survey to lender letter
The pre-works survey$340
Borescope read of the foam and the timber under it, moisture map, lender-letter scope — credited on any rake
Attic rake-out$6.40 / sq ft
Mechanical rake, HEPA-contained, every flake vacuumed to bare timber or sarking
Under-slate & rafter foam removalfrom $11.80 / sq ft
The slow hand work — cutting foam off timbers without cutting the timbers
Reinsulate, breathable$2.20 / sq ft
Sheep’s wool or wood fibre to 300 mm, eaves ventilation restored by design
Timber repairs found under foamat cost + 10%
Quoted during the survey where visible, priced honestly where the foam hid it
The retest & lender letterincluded
Borescope re-read, photographs against the valuer’s own checklist, letter issued
The method
Foam to letter, in five moves
Survey & moisture map
The borescope reads the foam’s thickness, the timber it touched, and the wet under it. Ninety-six percent of surveys find something besides the foam — a rotted batten, a blocked vent, a chimney detail gone wrong — and you hear about all of it before the rake is booked.
Contain & rake
Sheeting at every threshold, HEPA extraction running at the cutting face, and the foam raked off in sections. The dust is the danger and the containment is why ours passes the air test your insurer may ask for.
The slow hand work
Foam bonded to rafters and sarking is shaved and peeled by hand — blades and heat, never chisels swung at timber. This is the day the cheap quotes skip, and the day the retest passes or fails.
Reinsulate & ventilate
Wool or wood fibre to spec, eaves ventilation restored to the detail the roof was born with. The build-up is designed to be SEEN — a borescope reads straight through it, which is the entire point for the valuer.
Retest & the letter
Borescope re-read photographed against the valuer’s checklist, issued as the lender letter. One hundred percent of our remediated roofs have passed — every roof, every valuer, since 2019.
Why did the surveyor refuse the roof?
Because spray foam hides what it covers: the valuer cannot see the timber, cannot probe the sarking, and cannot lend against what cannot be seen. Open-cell foam additionally traps moisture against cold decks in UK-style roofs, and closed-cell glues slates so a repair means destroying them. The refusal is the system working — the remediation is what makes the roof legible again.
Is the dust dangerous?
Treated as though it is, always: full containment at the thresholds, HEPA extraction at the cutting face, and the crew in powered respirators. An air test after the rake is available where your insurer or family doctor wants one — and the containment is built the same way whether or not anyone will ever read the certificate.
Can you do it without lifting the slates?
Usually, yes — most attic foam is raked from inside with the roof weathertight the whole time. Under-slate foam bonded to the felt or sarking is the exception, and the survey tells you which roof you own with photographs before you commit to anything.
What if the foam has been up for fifteen years?
Age is less important than what it has been doing: we have raked two-year foam that had already started a rot problem and thirty-year foam over sound oak. The borescope survey answers the real question — what has happened to the timber underneath — and ninety-six percent of the time the honest answer includes at least one thing nobody sprayed the foam about.
Will the roof be colder than the foam left it?
No — properly specified wool or wood fibre to 300 mm outperforms a foam layer that was almost never sprayed to the thickness its invoice claimed. What you lose is the airtightness the foam bought by gluing everything shut; what you gain is a roof that dries, vents as designed, and can be repaired by any roofer with a ladder instead of a specialist with a knife.
Fair questions
Asked once the offer falls through
The five every foam-refused seller asks, in the week the solicitor letters arrive. The rake desk below runs seven to six — and yes, we have heard the one about the installer who vanished. Everyone has.
The lender letter, or we come back
Every remediated roof gets the borescope retest and the letter. If a valuer declines the roof on foam-related grounds after our remediation, we return — rake, reinsulate, retest — on our invoice. It has never been needed; the promise exists so you can stop worrying about the one thing the foam already broke once.
The survey says the ugly parts first
Ninety-six percent of pre-works surveys find something besides the foam, and every finding is in the written scope with a price before the rake is booked. Nobody who hires us ever discovers a rotten batten by watching our faces change.
The foam took a weekend to spray and cost us the sale of the house. Rakeout had it out, the wool in, and the valuer’s letter in my inbox inside the week the buyer’s solicitor gave us. I have the letter framed in the new kitchen — genuinely.
Buyer’s surveyor wrote “decline — spray foam, condition of deck unknown.” Rakeout’s borescope survey found the deck sound but a batten run gone soft behind the chimney, quoted both parts honestly, and the retest photographs went to the valuer on the Friday. We completed three weeks later.
Ours was the vacuum-only job — foam off the sarking with slates untouched, containment so tight the bedrooms below stayed in daily use. The air test came back cleaner than the room had been before they started, which the insurance assessor enjoyed as much as I did.
The barn was 140 square metres of closed-cell glue and every other firm wanted the slates off. Four days, letter on day five, and the timber invoice matched the survey to the dollar — including the one section the foam had hidden, which they had priced as a contingency before they ever saw it.
Surveys inside the week · lender letters issued with every remediation · we work to valuers’ checklists, not around them · (555) 334-8271 · rake@rakeoutremediation.example
Send the surveyor’s photographs
The refusal letter and two photos of the foam are enough to start — the $340 borescope survey follows inside the week, credited against the rake, and the lender letter comes with the work. rake@rakeoutremediation.example