Flat roofing in Hyde
Extension, garage and outbuilding roofs around Hyde and Frogham, with the outlets and downpipes checked as part of the job.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Out here a flat roof is nearly always on something small: a garage, a store, the link between a cottage and the bit added onto it. Small roofs fail in the same places large ones do, and on a small roof there is far more edge than middle, so most of the money goes into the junctions.
The call comes after a ceiling has marked, after the felt has gone brittle and started opening along its laps, or after heavy rain has sent water over the edge of a roof instead of down a pipe. That last one surprises people most and is usually the cheapest of the three to put right.
It is a fair drive, so we come once and look at the lot: the covering, the deck, the falls, the outlet, and where the downpipe finishes. You get photographs of what was found and a written quote, and neither costs anything.
Roof by roof
The buildings these roofs sit on, and what each one needs
The garage or the store. The commonest job here. A shallow deck of chipboard or plain boarding over light joists, and a built up felt covering gone hard, split along a lap, with the odd blister standing clear of the boards. If the boards are dry it takes a new covering straight off, either EPDM rubber in one sheet with bonded laps or a three layer torch on system finished in a mineral cap sheet. Where they are not, new OSB goes down first. A ventilated cold roof is fine over a car or a mower, insulation between the joists and air moving above it. A fresh edge trim with a drip on it goes round the open sides. Single ply is welded rather than bonded and only makes sense across a longer range of garages.
The link between the old house and the newer part. A narrow run of flat tying a cottage to an addition, and the least forgiving roof on the list. It is almost all edge: an upstand against the old wall on one side, a second abutment on the other, a scrap of covering in between and one outlet doing all of the work. The wall is usually soft, so the flashing goes on as lead over an apron rather than a chase cut in deep. GRP fibreglass suits the shape, because it is formed in place and leaves no lap or seam to fail in a corner.
The extension with a room under it. Kitchen, sitting room, sometimes a bedroom, and here the build up matters more than the covering does. Warm damp air off a kettle reaches a cold deck and condenses on the underside, and the interstitial damp that follows rots boards from below with nothing showing on top. The answer is a warm roof: PIR laid over the deck, the vapour control layer under it, the dew point pushed outside the timber. BS 6229 gives the build and Approved Document L the standard. New deck, new firrings and a rooflight formed round runs to two or three working days.
The small roof behind a parapet. Covering turned up the back of a low wall with a coping sitting on top. They fail two ways. The coping lets water into the wall behind the upstand, or the single outlet blocks and the roof turns into a tank. So the coping is re-bedded, a cavity tray goes in behind it where one can, the upstand is carried high enough to be worth having, and the outlet is cleared and checked against the area feeding it. Standing water on one of these is a fall problem and firrings or tapered insulation put it back. Where a lantern, a skylight, a Velux, a hatch, a soil pipe or a vent pipe comes through, each gets its own kerb or collar.
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.
Hyde is inside the National Park, so the New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority rather than the district council, and the Western Escarpment conservation area covers this side of the valley. A like for like re-cover is maintenance and needs no planning permission, while a change of appearance is where the National Park Authority publishes what needs consent. Where a covering is replaced across most of a roof, it counts as a controlled thermal element under Approved Document L, which puts the insulation and the build up in front of building control on a building notice.
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 set away from the house, a link roof between a cottage and a modern extension and a workshop with a long span are three different jobs before anything comes off. 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. We are a good half hour out, so ring early and we will tell you honestly whether an emergency cover goes on today or first thing tomorrow. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The roof is the easy half. The ground here is the other half
Surface water sits badly on this ground, and Huckles Brook is near enough to matter in a wet spell. You can check your own address against the government flood risk service. It changes one thing about a flat roof. A covering that sheds perfectly is no use if the water then banks up against a wall or crosses a yard that is already full. So we follow it: outlet, hopper, downpipe, and then the question nobody thinks to ask, which is where the pipe ends.
Often enough the answer is a gully silted solid, or a pipe finishing in a border that has been quietly wetting a wall footing for years. On new work, surface water is meant to be disposed of properly rather than tipped at the nearest bit of ground, and Approved Document H is where that sits. If a roof is coming off anyway, the hour spent on the drainage while the platform is up is the cheapest that job is ever going to be.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Hyde, Frogham, Gorley, Ogdens and the SP6 lanes above Fordingbridge, and the site visit is free. 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
Hyde questions we get asked
Is the National Park the right people to ask?
Yes. Hyde sits inside the Park, so the National Park Authority handles planning rather than the district council, and the Western Escarpment conservation area covers this side of the valley. None of that troubles a like for like re-cover. It is a change of appearance, a new rooflight or a raised parapet that starts the conversation.
Water goes over the front edge in a downpour. Is the covering finished?
Probably not the covering at all. Either the outlet is blocked, or it is too small for the area of roof feeding it, or the fall now runs to a corner the outlet is not in. We pour water through and watch it before quoting, because clearing an outlet and re-covering a roof are very different bills.
Can you do a store roof without me emptying it?
Mostly. Anything directly under the part we are stripping wants moving or sheeting, because old felt and wet board drop dust through the joints. We say on the visit which bays come off first, so you can clear that much and leave the rest where it is.
Is a garage roof a one day job?
Usually. A link roof between a cottage and an extension can take longer than a bigger roof, because it is nearly all detail. An extension needing new boards, new firrings and a rooflight is two or three working days.
Nearby, and next door
Flat roofing near Hyde
Flat roofing nearby
Our other trades in Hyde
Everything we do in Ringwood Flat roofing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a price for your Hyde flat roof
Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will look at the covering and at where the water goes, and put an itemised price in writing.