Flat roofing in Minstead
Flat roof repairs, re-covering and warm roof build ups in Minstead and the SO43 lanes. 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.
Nearly every flat roof around Minstead is a later addition on an older building. A garage, an outshot, a porch or a rear extension. So the job is nearly always about the junction where new meets old, and that is the first thing we look at.
What prompts the call varies. Moss has taken hold across the surface and holds water in a green stripe. A dark patch has appeared high on a bedroom wall. Or the gutter under the roof runs over every time it rains properly. Buildings out here are spread about and no two of them are quite the same, so we turn up without assuming anything and without a price in mind. We get up safely, follow the falls, look into every outlet and at every abutment, and go inside wherever there is something worth seeing. Then you get a written price rather than a figure over the phone.
On site
Small roofs, and getting them right
Repairs, which is most of what we do here. Out among the trees the outlet is the usual offender, filled with leaf litter and moss until nothing drains at all. After that comes a cracked fold, a risen blister, a seam that has opened at a lap, a trim off its fixings, or an upstand gone perished at the wall. None of those is a new roof. We follow the falls back from the stain to work out where water is really getting in.
Re-covering. A surface that has stopped bending has to come off. On the small, cut about roofs common here, torch on felt built up in three layers under a mineral cap sheet is the most forgiving thing to lay. A plain rectangle is quicker and tidier in EPDM rubber, one bonded sheet with nothing across the field. GRP fibreglass is laid wet and cures into a single skin with the trims part of it, so it suits anything walked on. Single ply gets welded at the joints and belongs on a large roof. A small roof can be a single day, a garage or an extension two to three working days.
Under the covering. Plywood, OSB, chipboard or older boarding, and the state of it decides the price more than anything else does. Firm decking can be covered over. Anything that gives underfoot comes off, and we look hard at the joists while they are open. Standing water is a fall fault, corrected with firrings or with insulation cut on a taper rather than papered over with a new surface. On a rebuild above a heated room the insulation belongs on top of the deck: rigid PIR with a vapour control layer under it, timber held above the dew point, interstitial condensation designed out. That is what BS 6229:2025 on flat roofs sets out and what Approved Document L asks for.
Everything it touches. A generous upstand and a cover flashing chased into the wall. A lead apron where lead is already on the building. A cavity tray where there is a cavity. Parapets and copings taken as part of the roof. A kerb built to carry a rooflight, a lantern, a Velux, a hatch, a soil pipe or a vent pipe. Then the drip, the edge trim and the gutter, hopper and downpipe under it, because a new roof draining into a split gutter simply moves the damage down the wall.
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.
Minstead is inside the New Forest National Park, so planning sits with the Authority. A like for like re-cover is maintenance and needs no planning permission, with Planning Portal guidance marking the limit. The village is also in a conservation area, and permitted development is narrower inside one, so anything altering the look of a building is worth checking against the National Park Authority's interactive property map first. Building control applies separately wherever a new deck goes over a habitable room.
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 porch roof off a ladder, a garage down an unmade track, and an extension with no side access are three different jobs before a knife touches anything. 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. Minstead is a run out into the Forest for us, but water coming through a ceiling gets covered on the first visit. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
What like for like actually means in a conservation area
Inside a conservation area the safe route is always like for like, and on a flat roof that is usually easy because so few of them can be seen from anywhere public. The catch is that like for like is not as simple as it sounds. The mineral felt that went on these roofs decades ago is not what you would buy today, and a modern equivalent can look markedly lighter or greyer once it is up. If your roof is one of the ones you can see across the green or from a lane, that difference is the thing an officer would notice.
So we write the specification properly: which system, how many layers, what colour and profile the cap sheet is, what the trims and the flashings are made of. It gives you something to hand over if anybody asks, and it removes the argument before it starts. The same care applies to putting a rooflight into a slope that is visible, and if the building itself is one of the listed ones around here, consent comes before the material changes rather than after.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Minstead, Lyndhurst, Emery Down, Bartley and the SO43 lanes in the middle of the Forest. 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
Minstead questions we get asked
Do I need permission to re-cover a flat roof here?
Not for like for like. A new covering on an existing roof is maintenance, so there is nothing to apply for. It changes if the shape of the roof alters, if the appearance changes noticeably where it can be seen, or if the building is listed. Tell us the address and we will check before quoting.
Leaves keep blocking my outlet. Is there a fix?
Partly. A leaf guard at the outlet helps and so does making sure the fall actually runs to it, but on a roof under trees nothing removes the need to clear it now and then. What we can do is get the falls and the outlet sized right so a blockage backs up slowly rather than instantly.
Can a flat roof be insulated without taking it off?
Sometimes from below, between and under the joists, but that turns it into a colder deck and needs a vapour control layer and ventilation thought through, or you trade a leak for condensation. If the covering is due anyway, insulating above the deck as a warm roof is the better answer.
How long will it take and what happens to the old roof?
A small roof is often a day, a garage or an extension two to three working days. The strip out is the messy part and it is the first morning. Everything that comes off leaves with us, the site is swept at the end of each day, and nothing is left open overnight.
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Get a price for your Minstead flat roof
Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, look at every junction, and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.