Flat Roofing in Rockbourne

We start with the cheapest thing that will hold. A lap that has opened, a bubble standing proud of the boards, two sheets come apart at the weld, an edge trim with its fixings loose: those are repairs. Old felt is cut back to sound material, primed and welded in beneath a fresh mineral cap sheet. GRP fibreglass is ground back at the crack and laminated again. EPDM rubber is scrubbed clean and bonded flat. Where the covering breaks up under a thumb anywhere you try it, we say so instead of taking money for a patch.

Below it sits plywood, OSB, chipboard, or on older additions plain boarding over the joists. Chipboard drinks water once and never dries back to its old thickness, so a roof with a hollow in it is telling you about its boards and not its felt. Soft ones come out. With everything open the joists get a proper look, and a fall is built back in, with firrings cut over the timbers or tapered insulation where the roof goes back warm, so the surface empties at a rainwater outlet rather than holding a puddle.

Out here the junctions are the real job. Much of the older property is chalk, flint and soft brick, and a chase cut hard into that takes more out of the wall than the leak ever did. So we work over the face instead: lead dressed down onto an apron, or a cover flashing tucked into a joint already there and pointed back. A parapet gets its coping re-bedded and a cavity tray behind. Along every free edge goes a trim with a drip on its underside, which is the only thing stopping water curling back beneath the covering.

What goes back on follows the roof rather than whatever is on the van. EPDM rubber arrives in one piece with its laps bonded cold, no flame near old timber. GRP fibreglass is rolled on wet over fresh ply and hardens into a continuous skin. Built up felt, three layers with the mineral cap sheet torched over, is walked on better than any of them. Single ply is hot air welded and earns its place only across a long open span.

Last comes the room beneath. Over a store or a car, a ventilated cold roof with insulation between the joists is sound enough. Put a kitchen or a bedroom under the same build up and steam off a kettle finds a cold board, settles on the underside and marks the ceiling in a way nobody can tell from a leak. That is condensation, and interstitial damp is what it does to the timber. Building warm turns it round: PIR above the boards, the vapour control layer below them, the dew point outside the structure. BS 6229 sets the build up and Approved Document L the standard. Any rooflight, lantern, Velux, hatch, soil pipe or vent pipe gets a kerb raised or a collar formed before the covering is dressed over it.

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 off a village lane, a lean-to on the back of a cottage and a flat roof over a converted outbuilding are three different jobs before any covering comes off the van. 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.

We cover Rockbourne, Sandleheath, Fordingbridge, Damerham and the villages across SP6, working over from Bournemouth. 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.