Flat roofing in Corfe Castle

The traditional flat comes first. A good many of the older roofs in Corfe Castle are lead, laid in bays over a boarded deck with rolls and drips between them. Lead splits where it has been fixed too tightly to move, and it fatigues along a drip. Where the original is lead and the building is seen, lead is usually what should go back, and we will price it that way rather than talk you into a membrane.

The modern ones. Elsewhere in Corfe Castle it is felt: a three layer built up system with a mineral cap sheet, or a single torch on layer laid over the last covering. Those fail as splits along the creases, blisters where damp was sealed in, and a lifted seam at an upstand. On a plain rectangle we strip to the deck and lay EPDM rubber in one sheet, no lap and no seam in the field of the roof.

What is under it. Plywood, OSB or chipboard decking on joists, with firrings on top creating the fall. Chipboard that has been wet gives underfoot and comes off. A roof with no fall holds standing water, and that ponding is what kills a covering long before the weather does. Where we cannot re-firr we build the fall in tapered insulation. BS 6229 is the code the falls come from.

Insulation, and what it does to old timber. Over a heated room the insulation comes up with the covering under Part L. We take it above the deck: a vapour control layer first, PIR over that, membrane above, so the joists and the boards stay on the warm side of everything. The alternative is a cold roof, insulation packed between the joists, which leaves the deck below the dew point. Warm damp air from the room reaches it, interstitial condensation forms inside the construction, and in a thick walled old building the timber has nowhere to dry to. Building control are notified and inspect it open.

Junctions and openings. None of this is optional. A chase cut into the stone or brick, a lead cover flashing dressed into it, a cavity tray above where the wall is cavity built. A coping on the parapet with an apron under it. A kerb beneath every rooflight, lantern, Velux style flat roof window, hatch and soil or vent pipe, so the covering turns up an upstand instead of stopping at a frame. A drip trim along the free edges. And a rainwater outlet sized for the roof, running to a hopper, a downpipe or the gutter. A garage is a day, a back addition two or three working days, and we say how long first.

We don't price flat roofs by area. The size is the easy measurement and tells you least. Lead or a membrane. A lead flat on an old cottage is laid in bays, with wood rolls and drips between them, and on a building of that age lead usually goes back. EPDM rubber and GRP fibreglass go down faster on a modern extension or garage. We agree which suits your building, and what will show from the lane, before quoting.

The boards underneath. A dry, firm deck can take a new covering. Chipboard or ply that has soaked for years must be replaced, and on an old back addition the joists can be too slight for the span. We look from inside or lift an edge first.

Falls and upstands. A dead flat roof holds puddles, and firrings give it a fall again. Where the roof meets a stone wall, the flashing is tucked into a raked-out joint, not glued to the face. Every outlet, upstand and edge trim is counted, and several outlets add up.

Getting to it. A single storey addition in Corfe Castle can usually be worked from a tower. On a street frontage each sheet and every bag of old boarding is carried through, and the work at height rules make the platform its own item.

Ask any other firm which system they are pricing and in how many layers, whether the deck is replaced or overlaid, and whether scaffold and skip are included.

The whole of the village core sits within the Corfe Castle Conservation Area, and there are well over a hundred listed entries in and around it. That combination is unusual even for Purbeck, and it changes the order you do things in. The rule of thumb is simple enough: like for like is maintenance, a change of appearance is not.

So a lead flat re-laid as a lead flat is repair. The same roof re-covered in a light grey membrane, where it can be seen from the street or from the castle mound, is a change the council will take a view on. Rooflights and lanterns are the other thing that gets noticed, because they add something that was not there before. And if the building itself is listed, the listing follows it all the way to the back, so even a hidden roof needs consent. None of this is a reason to leave water coming in. We make a leak safe first and sort the permanent covering once the paperwork is straight.

From Boscombe to Corfe Castle is roughly eleven and a half miles. We price flat roofs in the village and on the lanes out to Church Knowle, Kingston and Harmans Cross, all of it BH20 and all under Dorset Council.

You deal with Thomas Hannen, whose business this is; he looks at the roof and writes the price himself. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company 15471719. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave the work 10 out of 10. Neither the visit nor the written quote costs you anything. Before you book a visit in Corfe Castle, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Corfe Castle 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.