Flat roofing in Ashley Heath

Garage and outbuilding roofs. Most are felt, either a three layer built up system with a mineral cap sheet or a single torch on layer laid over whatever was there before. Once the surface goes brittle you get splits along the joints and blisters where damp has been trapped underneath.

On a small square roof we take it back to the deck and lay EPDM rubber in one piece, so there is no lap and no seam in the open part of the roof at all. GRP fibreglass suits roofs with more shape to them, because upstands and kerbs are laminated in place rather than bonded on afterwards. Single ply is hot air welded, which beats a torch beside a timber wall.

Under the covering. Lift it and you find plywood, OSB or, on the older ones, chipboard. Chipboard that has been wet swells, gives underfoot and has to come off. The joists are usually sound and the firrings on top of them are what create the fall. Plenty of these roofs were laid dead flat, which is where ponding starts, and standing water in the same corner all winter finishes a covering off years early. Where the joists cannot be re-firred we build the fall in tapered insulation instead. BS 6229 sets out how a flat roof sheds water.

Rooms you live in. A roof over a kitchen or a bedroom is a different animal to a garage. Renewing the covering brings the insulation into scope under Part L, so the build up becomes a warm roof: a vapour control layer on the deck, PIR boards over it, membrane on top. A cold roof, with the insulation pushed down between the joists, is the one that causes grief, because moist air reaches the dew point inside the construction and interstitial condensation rots the deck from above. Building control want that done properly and we notify them.

Edges, junctions and openings. At the abutment we cut a chase and dress in a lead cover flashing, and on a cavity wall a cavity tray sits above it or water tracks down inside. A parapet needs its coping and an apron. Rooflights, a kitchen lantern and a Velux style flat roof window all sit on a raised kerb rather than flat on the deck, and so does a hatch or a soil and vent pipe. Free edges take a drip trim, and the rainwater outlet runs into a hopper and downpipe or a fall into the gutter. Dormer cheeks and bay tops on the bungalows in Ashley Heath leak out of all proportion to their size.

Two flat roofs of the same size can hide completely different jobs, which is why there is no square metre rate on our quotes.

What the deck is made of. Flat roofs of this age in Ashley Heath were often boarded in chipboard. Once it has taken water it swells and softens, and it has to be cut out and replaced in ply or OSB before a membrane goes on. Sound boards can be overlaid. We check under an edge first, because the deck swings the price more than anything.

Where the water sits. Ponding means the roof was laid dead flat. Firrings build the fall back in and send the water to the outlet. That is extra timber and time, and it is what makes the next covering last.

Rubber, fibreglass or felt. EPDM, GRP and torch-on each go down their own way and are finished their own way at upstands and edge trims. Under pines, needles collect against an upstand and hold water, so the outlet detail matters on Ashley Heath plots.

Reaching it. On a level drive a tower is up in no time, and anything above a two storey wall goes on scaffold. The rules on working at height set how the platform is built and how long it stays while the deck is open.

When you compare, check what each quote names as the system and the number of layers, whether new decking is included, whether firrings are, and whether the tower and the skip are in the total.

Ashley Heath sits open, and the elevation that takes the worst of it faces south west. On a pitched roof that shows up as moss and slipped tiles. On a flat roof it does something more specific. Wind gets under the perimeter, lifts the covering at the edge trim and works its way in from there. A flat roof that fails early nearly always goes at a corner or along a windward edge, not out in the middle.

So the perimeter is where the care goes. Fixings at closer centres along the exposed edges, the trim screwed down properly rather than nailed through the covering, and upstands taken high enough that driven rain cannot get behind them. It adds very little while the roof is open, and it decides whether the covering sits there quietly or starts flapping in the first proper south westerly. If you are collecting quotes, ask what the edge detail is.

From the base in Boscombe it is 7.1 miles to Ashley Heath, and we cover flat roofs across the BH24 roads here, from Horton Road and the estates towards St Leonards and St Ives over to Ringwood. Building control for a re-cover sits with Dorset Council.

You would be dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it, and he is the person who checks your deck and writes the price. Checkatrade carries a 10 out of 10 from a verified customer of ours. There is no charge for the visit, or for the itemised quote we put in writing. Before you book a visit in Ashley Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ashley Heath need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.