Flat roofing in Bearwood
Flat roof repairs, re-covers and warm roof upgrades across Bearwood and the BH11 estates. We open the covering and look at the deck before we price it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most flat roofs in Bearwood fail at an edge, an outlet or a seam, not in the middle. That matters, because an edge is a morning and a rotten deck is a different job altogether.
The calls from here are nearly always one of three. Something is dripping into a garage and the boxes underneath are wet. A ceiling in a room over the garage has gone a funny colour and nobody can say why. Or the felt on a porch canopy has curled back off its trim and you can see the boards. None of that is diagnosed from the ground. We get up there, look at how the water is meant to leave the roof, open a lap if we need to, and send you photographs with the written price.
The work
Garage blocks, porch canopies and the roof over the back door
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 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.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, stripping the old covering, any new deck or firrings, the insulation, the membrane and each upstand, outlet and edge trim, and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Like for like re-covering is maintenance, so no planning permission and nothing to apply for: it is ordinary permitted development, and Planning Portal guidance sets out where that stops. Once most of the covering comes off it counts as renovating a thermal element, which has to be notified, and the insulation then has to reach what Approved Document L asks under Part L. There is no conservation area over Bearwood, and the council keeps the list if you want to check your own address.
Cost
What decides the price of a flat roof
No rate per square metre, because the square metres are the easy part and what is under the covering is what decides the job.
Getting to it. A garage in a terraced block, a porch canopy on a semi and a flat roof over an integral garage with a bedroom above are three separate jobs, and getting to them is most of the difference. A garage or a single storey extension will often come off a tower, anything above a two storey wall wants a scaffold, and the platform has to stand while the deck is open rather than for an afternoon. The work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than something folded into a rate.
The deck under the covering. A sound deck can be re-covered. Chipboard that has been wet for years, or ply that gives underfoot, has to come off and be replaced, and you cannot tell which you have from the ground or from a photograph. We lift a corner before quoting, because the deck is the single biggest swing in the price.
The falls, and where the water is meant to go. Most flat roofs that fail were never laid to a fall, or the fall runs at an outlet that has since been blocked or built over. Correcting it with firrings is more work than laying a membrane and it is the difference between a roof that lasts and one that ponds. Upstands, edge trims and each outlet are priced one at a time, because that is where the hours and the leaks both are.
Comparing quotes? Ask which system is being quoted and how many layers, whether the deck is being renewed or covered over, whether the falls are being corrected with firrings, how the upstands, outlets and edge trims are detailed, and whether the scaffold and the skip are in the price. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
If it is coming through
Water through a flat roof
Ring rather than use the form. A flat roof that has split, blistered or lifted at an upstand puts water straight onto a ceiling, and once the deck is wet the damage carries on after the rain stops. The first visit is about getting it covered and dry, and we price the permanent job once we can see how much of the deck has gone. Bearwood is about as close to the yard as our patch gets, so an emergency visit to sheet a roof and stop it getting worse is usually same day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Estate roofs that were all laid in the same few years
Most of Bearwood went up in one long push, and the housing is heavily 1980s. That has a practical consequence for flat roofing: the garage roofs, porch canopies and back additions on a street were felted within a few years of each other, in the same way, by the same trade. They therefore reach the end of their life together.
So if a neighbour has had a garage roof done and yours looks fine, take that as a warning rather than a comparison. A covering renewed while the boards are still sound is a far smaller job than one renewed after two wet winters. It also means an adjoining garage block is usually better done as one run of work, with one lot of access, than as four separate visits.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bearwood, Merley, Kinson and the BH11 addresses either side of Magna Road, with BCP Council as the authority for anything notifiable. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Bearwood questions we get asked
Water sits in a puddle in the middle. Is that actually a problem?
It is a symptom. Standing water on its own does not always leak, but ponding tells you the falls are wrong or an outlet is blocked, and it works on every seam and lap it sits on. We check where the water is meant to go first, because clearing an outlet sometimes fixes it and sometimes proves the roof was never laid to a fall.
The room over the garage is freezing. Can that be sorted with the roof?
That is the best time to do it. With the covering off, the deck exposed and the joists visible, adding a warm roof build up costs a fraction of what it would as a separate job later. It also stops the condensation that a cold roof with no ventilation causes.
Will you take the old felt away?
Yes. Stripped covering, wet insulation and any rotten decking leave with us, and disposal is a separate line on the quote rather than a surprise at the end.
Do you do flat roofs in winter?
Yes, with a caveat about materials. EPDM rubber and a welded single ply will go down in cold weather, and torch on felt is workable on a dry day. GRP fibreglass wants a dry deck and some warmth to cure properly, so if the forecast is against it we will tell you to wait rather than lay it badly.
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Get a price for your Bearwood flat roof
Send the address and tell us what you have noticed. We will look at the deck as well as the covering and put an itemised price in writing.