Flat roofing in Bearwood

Garage roofs, on their own and under a bedroom. A detached garage that leaks ruins your storage. An integral garage with a room above it is a different matter, because the same failure lands in a habitable ceiling. Both are usually a three layer built up felt roof under a mineral cap sheet, and both come back in EPDM rubber or a torch on system depending on how much detail there is.

Porches, canopies, bay tops and dormer cheeks. Small roofs, big nuisance. A canopy over a front door is mostly edge: an apron into the brickwork, a drip at the front and two short upstands. A bay top has to shed into the gutter without backing up behind the tiles above it. A dormer cheek and its little flat top are where a lot of the leaks reported as roof leaks actually start.

Under the covering. The deck on this sort of estate in Bearwood is usually chipboard, and chipboard that has been damp swells, goes soft and stops holding a fixing. Plywood and OSB behave better but still have to be dry. Firrings set the falls across the joists, and if there are none, or the fall runs at an outlet somebody has since built over, the water stops moving. Correcting that with new firrings or with tapered insulation is more work than laying a membrane, and it is the difference between a roof that drains and one that ponds.

Warm roof, cold roof and the damp that is not a leak. A cold roof puts the insulation between the joists and needs the space above it to breathe. A warm roof puts PIR over the deck with a vapour control layer beneath, so the timber stays above the dew point and you do not get interstitial condensation soaking a deck that never saw a drop of rain. BS 6229 covers both, and on a room over a garage the warm build up is nearly always the right answer.

Openings, junctions and rainwater. A rooflight, a lantern or a Velux sits on a kerb that has to be formed, insulated and dressed. So does a soil pipe or a vent pipe through the deck. Against a wall the flashing is chased into the brickwork and dressed down in lead, and where there is a parapet we check the coping and the cavity tray. Then the gutter, the hopper, the rainwater outlet and the downpipe under it, because a blocked outlet is behind more standing water than any failed membrane.

Flat roofs are not priced per square metre. The deck, the falls and the edges decide how long it takes.

Getting to it. A garage in a terraced block, a porch canopy on a Bearwood semi and a flat roof over an integral garage each need their own access plan. A tower does most garages. A roof above a two storey wall is scaffolded, and the scaffold stays until the new covering is sealed. The work at height rules are why that is priced.

The deck. Chipboard that has taken water swells and crumbles, and a soft spot underfoot usually means more has gone than shows. OSB or ply replaces it. We lift a corner before quoting, because a new deck is the largest variable.

Falls. Many older flat roofs were laid almost level, so water sits in shallow ponds and finds any split. Tapered firrings under a new deck put a proper fall back towards the outlet or gutter.

Where the water ends up. The ground under Bearwood is shrink-swell clay. A garage gutter that empties onto the ground next to the footings can move them, so taking it to a drain while the work is on is worth pricing.

The covering. Felt built up in layers, a one-piece rubber membrane, or glass reinforced plastic. Each is detailed differently at the upstands and trims.

When you compare quotes, check the system and the number of layers, whether the deck is new or overlaid, whether firrings are in, and whether scaffold and skip are priced.

From Boscombe it is 5 miles to Bearwood, and we cover flat roofs here and in Merley, Kinson and the BH11 streets either side of Magna Road. BCP Council handles any building control notice. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company 15471719. Before you book a visit in Bearwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

It belongs to Thomas Hannen, who climbs up, lifts an edge of the old felt and writes the price himself. We have a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit costs nothing, and neither does the itemised quote in writing.

Most repairs in Bearwood 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.