Flat roofing in Sandford

Garages, porches and the extension across the back. The flat roofs in Sandford are the ones that came with the house or shortly after it: an attached garage, a canopy porch, a utility or dining room built across the back, and a fair number of flat topped dormers.

Most are felt built up in three layers with a mineral cap sheet on top, or torch on felt laid over the top of it later, with GRP fibreglass on the ones done more recently. We open a bay and look at the deck first, every time. Plywood or OSB that has stayed dry can take a new covering as it is. Chipboard decking that has been wet loses its grip on the screws and sags between the joists, and new boards go down before anything else. The covering after that is EPDM rubber, fibreglass, a fresh torch on system, or single ply where the run is long and simple.

Falls, outlets and standing water. Ponding is the fault to rule out first. Water that stays on the surface finds every lap and seam, and a hard frost levers them open. Nearly always the fall was never built in, the firrings were cut too shallow, or the rainwater outlet has silted up. We rebuild the falls with firrings or tapered insulation so the roof drains at an outlet, which is what BS 6229:2025 on flat roofs expects, then run water through and watch the gutter, hopper and downpipe clear it.

Trims, upstands and seams. A flat roof almost never fails in the field. It goes at the edge trim, the drip, the apron flashing where it meets the house, the kerb round an opening, and the laps. On felt that is a blister, a bubble or a split. On single ply it is a lifted or failed seam. On fibreglass it is a crack at a sharp internal angle. The failed material is cut out, the upstand is rebuilt behind the covering at a workable height, and each seam is welded or bonded rather than sealed and hoped over.

Openings, abutments and the build up. Rooflights, lanterns, a Velux, an access hatch and any soil and vent pipe get a kerb and a collar rather than a bead of sealant. Against brickwork a lead cover flashing is chased into the wall and dressed down over the upstand. On a parapet we check the coping and whether there is a cavity tray behind it. Sandford roofs of this vintage are cold roofs, with insulation between the joists and a void above that was supposed to breathe, and that void is where condensation gathers and interstitial damp rots the deck from below. Rebuilding it warm moves the insulation on top of the boards, over a vapour control layer, and takes the cold void out of the roof altogether.

A flat roof is not priced by the square metre. The area is quick to measure. What is under the covering takes longer to find out.

Where it is. An attached garage beside the driveway is reached from a tower. A rear extension on a semi may mean carrying everything through a side passage. A dormer over a bedroom needs a scaffold that stays up the whole time the deck is open. Work at height rules are why that platform is priced separately.

The deck. A lot of Sandford garages and extensions from the late sixties and seventies were boarded in chipboard. If it has soaked up water for years it crumbles, and you cannot tell from the ground. Thomas lifts a corner first, because the boards are the biggest swing in the price.

Falls and outlets. A puddle that is still there days after rain means the roof is too flat or an outlet has been blocked. Tapered firrings give it a fall again. Upstands against the house wall, trims along the edge and every outlet are counted one by one, since that is where water gets in.

The system. Built up felt, single ply and liquid membrane cost and last differently, and a warm roof adds insulation board over the deck.

Held against another quote, find out which covering they mean, whether new boards are allowed for or the old ones kept, whether the fall is being corrected, and whether the skip is in their total.

About a quarter of the housing around Sandford went up between the late nineteen sixties and the early seventies, so plenty of the flat roofs on garages and back extensions started life around the same time. Roofs of the same age tend to age the same way. The felt in the middle of those roofs is often still doing its job, while the timber edge fillets, the verge and the old metal trims have gone completely.

That is worth knowing before you accept a quote for a whole new roof. On a good many Sandford roofs the honest answer is edge work rather than a re-cover: strip the perimeter back, renew the fillet and the trim, redo the apron where it meets the wall, and let the sound part of the covering carry on. Where the deck has gone soft, or the covering has been over-coated twice already, then it does need stripping and we will say so. Either way, ask any quote you get which of those jobs it is pricing, because on this kind of roof they are a long way apart.

From our Boscombe base, Sandford is 11.7 miles. For flat roofs we cover the village, Holton Heath, Organford and Wareham, with the rest of BH20, and Dorset Council handles planning and building control.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719, and you can look that up. Thomas Hannen owns it and comes out himself to lift the edge and price your roof. On Checkatrade, one verified customer marked the work 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit or for the written quote, which lists every item. Before you book a visit in Sandford, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Sandford 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.