Flat roofing in Bransgore
Flat roof repairs, re-covering and warm roof build ups across Bransgore and the BH23 villages. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On an exposed plot like most of Bransgore, a flat roof almost never fails in the middle. It goes at the edge, at an upstand or around something coming through, and those are the parts we look at first and price one at a time.
Bransgore is open country with a lot of sky over it, and the weather that matters comes up from the south west. Add to that a village where more than half the houses were built between the war and the early 1980s, and the flat roofs we get called to are mostly original: a garage, a rear extension, a porch, a utility off the back, or the flat section tucked between two pitched roofs. People ring when something has lifted after a blow, when a ceiling has stained during a wet spell, or when they have noticed water still lying up there long after the rain stopped. We go up, look at the perimeter and the outlets before anything else, and photograph what we find so you can see it too.
Up top
What the wind finds first, and what we do about it
Wind gets under an edge, it does not come through the middle. Almost every failure we are called to out here starts at the perimeter. A trim whose fixings have pulled. A lap that has peeled back. A corner curled up. A fold cracked from being flexed once too often. Inside that boundary the covering is often still sound. So we walk the edges and press them first, then follow the falls inwards to the outlet, which out here is usually packed with needles and leaf litter. Every one of those is an hours job rather than a new roof.
Choosing a covering for an open plot. Where a surface has hardened past saving, off it comes. EPDM rubber arrives as one sheet, bonded down, so on a simple garage nothing runs across the middle to fail. GRP fibreglass is rolled out wet and sets hard as a single skin, trims and all, which is what we want under anything that gets stood on. For a roof full of steps, upstands and pipes, torch on felt built up in three layers under a mineral cap sheet is still the most forgiving thing to lay. A big span takes single ply, hot air welded at the joints. Reckon on two to three working days for a garage or a small extension.
What is underneath. Decks here are plywood, OSB or chipboard. Dry and firm, we can lay straight over it. If it flexes, it is out, and the joists get inspected while the roof is open. Water that stays put after the rain has gone is a fall problem, not a covering problem, and it gets solved with firrings or with tapered insulation cut to run at the outlet. Given the choice on a rebuild we put the insulation on top: rigid PIR over the deck, vapour control layer below it, so the timber never drops to the dew point and interstitial condensation cannot get started. The old cold roofs, insulated between the joists and starved of air, are the ones we find rotten underneath. That is the argument in BS 6229:2025 on flat roofs and, over a heated room, in Approved Document L.
Detail, which is where an exposed roof is won or lost. Perimeter trims fixed to hold rather than to look tidy. Laps welded or bonded right through instead of dressed over. An upstand carried higher than the bare minimum where the roof runs into a wall, its cover flashing cut into a chase, and an apron in lead where lead is already on the building. A cavity tray if there is a cavity to take one. Kerbs built up for a rooflight, a lantern, a Velux, a hatch, a soil pipe or a vent pipe. Parapet and coping checked. Drip and edge trim set out. Gutter, hopper and downpipe below all clear and running.
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.
Bransgore is in New Forest district. Re-covering as it stands is maintenance, so no planning permission is required and it sits within permitted development, the limits of which Planning Portal guidance explains. Alter the roof line, or deck over a habitable room, and building control applies through building notice or an application with full plans. No conservation area covers the village, and the listed entries here are farm buildings and cottages rather than the housing.
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 standing on an open plot, an extension behind a fence line, and a roof over a first floor room are not the same job even at the same size. 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. It is a short run out to Bransgore for us, so a leak here in a wet week is normally a same day or next day look. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Exposure decides the detail, not the covering
The weather that damages roofs around Bransgore comes off the south west, and on a flat roof wind does its work at the perimeter and the corners rather than across the middle. Air gets under a lifted edge, pressure builds, and the covering peels back from the trim inwards. That is why on an exposed plot we care more about how the edge is held down, how the laps are welded or bonded and how tall the upstand is than about which system goes on top. A cheap job usually looks identical to a good one from the ground, and the difference is entirely in the detail at the edges.
Driven rain does something similar. It does not fall onto the roof, it is pushed at the vertical parts, so the joint at a rooflight kerb, the top of an upstand and a cover flashing that was only ever tucked rather than chased are the places it gets behind. If your roof is on the open side of the village, tell us when you ring. It changes what we specify, and it changes what you should be checking on anybody else's quote.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bransgore, Burley, Thorney Hill, Sopley and the BH23 villages between Christchurch and Ringwood. 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
Bransgore questions we get asked
The wind lifted a corner of my garage roof. Can it be stuck back down?
Sometimes, if the covering is still supple and the deck is dry. More often a lifted corner has stretched the sheet and let water under it, and the honest answer is a re-cover of that roof with the edge fixed properly. We will tell you which one you have after we have been up, not before.
How long does a flat roof take?
A garage or a single storey extension is normally two to three working days, and most repairs are the same day. Renewing the deck, correcting falls with firrings or fitting a rooflight adds to it. Weather matters more than on a tiled roof, because a bonded system needs a dry deck to stick to.
Do you work off a scaffold or a tower?
Whichever the roof needs. A garage or a single storey extension usually comes off a tower. Anything over a two storey wall wants a scaffold, and it has to stand while the deck is open rather than for an afternoon. It is an itemised line on the quote either way.
Is there anything listed around here that would stop me?
Very unlikely on an ordinary house. The listed entries around Bransgore are farmhouses and cottages rather than the estates, and there is no conservation area over the village, so a like for like re-cover needs no consent at all. If your own house is listed, tell us and we will check before we quote.
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Get a price for your Bransgore flat roof
Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, look at the edges and the outlets, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.