Builders in Ringwood

Each trade has its own Ringwood page. Here is what the work involves on the houses here.

Roofs, gutters and chimneys

In the old centre you find clay plain tiles and natural slate on steep pitches. Out on the estates it is mostly concrete interlocking tile, with felt or newer flat roofs over garages, porches and the extensions added in the seventies and eighties. We do repairs and full re-roofs on all of them: slipped tiles, ridges and hips, lead flashings round stacks, rooflights, fascias and soffits, and flat roofs renewed in EPDM, GRP or felt. Ringwood is a town of big trees, so gutters and valleys clog every autumn and shaded slopes grow moss. Clear them before water backs up under the tiles. See roofing in Ringwood, repairs, flat roofing work and gutters, fascias and soffits.

Brick walls, pointing and wall ties

The older houses near the church and along Christchurch Road are soft red brick laid in lime. Point those in hard cement and the wall can only dry through the brick, which then blows in a frost. They need lime putting back. The post-war houses have cavity walls, and on some of them the steel ties across the cavity have rusted. The sign is a horizontal crack in the mortar every few courses. Ties can be replaced from outside without taking the wall down. We also build garden walls, repair arches and match brick. More on brickwork in Ringwood and repointing.

Plastering, artex and render

Inside, we skim tired walls, dry line, and use lime plaster on solid walls where gypsum would trap damp. Plenty of Ringwood ceilings from the seventies and eighties carry artex, and textured coatings from before the year 2000 may contain asbestos, as HSE explains. Have it tested before anyone sands or scrapes it. Skimming over the top is often the better answer. Outside, we patch pebbledash to match and apply sand and cement, monocouche or silicone render. See plastering in Ringwood and rendering.

Extensions

A single storey extension, built by us, starts with the trench and the concrete footings. Then come block and brick walls, steel or lintels where it opens into the house, the roof, insulation and finally plaster. Drawings, structural calculations and the building control application are yours to organise, or the quote names whoever is doing them. Parts of the town sit on clay that shrinks in a dry summer, and near a large tree that pushes footings deeper. The inspector agrees the final depth once the trench is dug, so expect the foundation to appear on the quote as an allowance until then. More on house extensions.

Drives and patios

Block paving, resin bound and tarmac drives, sunken drives put right, drainage, and porcelain patios. Before a soakaway is drawn in, a percolation test in your own garden shows whether the ground will take the water. Paving more than a small part of a front garden with a surface that sheds onto the road needs planning permission, so most new drives are laid permeable or drained to a border. See driveways in Ringwood, patios, block paving, resin and tarmac.

Insulation

Lofts topped up between and over the joists, empty cavities filled where the wall suits it, internal wall insulation on solid walls, room-in-roof work on chalet bungalows, and warm flat roofs. See insulation in Ringwood, loft insulation and wall insulation.

Kitchen fitting

The old kitchen stripped out, walls and floor made good, then units, worktops and appliances in, including a kitchen you have sourced yourself. We do not do gas or electrical work, so a Gas Safe registered engineer connects any gas and a registered electrician wires new circuits. See kitchen fitting. For shops and offices in the town centre, see commercial roofing.

There are two ways a builder can charge you. On a day rate you pay for time on site, plus materials. That is fair when nobody can say how big a job is until it has been opened up, a hidden leak for example. On a fixed price you pay an agreed figure for a defined job, and you know it before the work begins. Most building work suits a fixed price.

So the hourly figure people search for does not answer the real question. What changes a price is the scaffold and the access, the amount of making good, the materials you pick, how much waste leaves site, and anything found once a floor comes up or a wall is opened. A useful quote shows each stage separately, flags any allowance for an unknown, such as how deep a foundation must go, and says plainly what is not included.

Ask each firm you are comparing:

• Does the price include scaffold, and for how many weeks?
• Are the skip and the waste included?
• Which lines are allowances, and how do they change if the real figure differs?
• Is making good, decorating or any fee left out?
• Who is arranging drawings, calculations and the building control application?

How we put a price together is on how we price a job.

Ringwood sits in Hampshire, and New Forest District Council handles planning for the town itself. The National Park starts on its eastern edge. The Market Place, Poulner and Hightown are outside it, while Crow and Hangersley are inside, where the New Forest National Park Authority decides applications instead. Its rules on extensions are tighter, so check before anything is drawn.

Repairing something, or replacing it like for like, seldom needs consent. A single storey extension to the back of a house can often be built as permitted development, inside limits on size and height. A flat carries none of the householder rights, so changing its outside generally needs an application, plus the freeholder's agreement.

The Ringwood Conservation Area covers the town centre. Inside it, cladding or rendering a wall, a side extension and some roof alterations need permission. Many of the listed buildings sit within it, the Meeting House and the Manor House among them, alongside listed houses on Christchurch Road and around the Market Place. Work that affects the character of a listed building needs listed building consent first, inside or out.

Building regulations apply either way. An extension goes through building control, by full plans or a building notice, with inspections of the trench, the drains and the structure. Renewing most of an existing roof can trigger the insulation standard in Part L. Along the Avon on the west of town, check the flood risk for your address, because an extension there that needs planning permission also needs a flood risk assessment.

Nothing here has to be settled before you ask for a price. At the visit we tell you which parts apply to your house and who handles each one, and our guide sets out when you need planning permission, building regulations approval or listed building consent.

• Recent projects: photos of our own jobs
• How we price a job: what the written quote covers
• Reviews: every review, copied in full

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