Flat roofing in Sandleheath
Extension, utility and garage roofs around Sandleheath and Fordingbridge, built so the room underneath stays dry.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On paper nothing about a flat roof here is complicated. No conservation area, barely anything listed, and putting the same covering back is maintenance. The awkward part is under the membrane, where the boards and the fall decide what the job really is.
The flat roofs are the back extension, the utility, the garage, and the link between an older cottage and something bolted on later. A fair slice of the village went up before the war, so plenty of these roofs run into a solid wall with no cavity in it, and that changes the flashing rather than the covering.
People ring for one of three reasons. A ceiling has marked. The felt has gone hard and opened along a lap. Or the room beneath streams with water every winter, which very often is not a leak at all. All three get looked at the same way, from on top, with a corner lifted.
Specifying it
Which system, and what has to be right underneath it
Pick the covering for the roof, not for the van. EPDM rubber comes as a single sheet, so out across the field of a garage roof there is nothing to fail. GRP fibreglass is formed in place and pays for itself where there are kerbs, an outlet and a rooflight to work round. Built up felt, three layers with a torch on mineral cap sheet, is still a proper roof and the toughest of them to walk on. Single ply is welded and wants a wide open span. Shape and traffic decide it.
The deck has the casting vote. Plywood, OSB or chipboard, and on the older additions plain boards over the joists. Chipboard swells the first time it gets wet and stays swollen, so a dip in a roof is usually a board telling you something. We lift a corner rather than guess. A dry deck takes a new covering and a soft one has to come out first, and nothing on a phone photograph will tell you which of the two you own.
A fall, or you are back in five winters. Firrings over the joists, or tapered insulation built into a warm roof, tilt the surface enough to send water at the rainwater outlet. Ponding is not a leak in itself, but it holds grit and moss on a surface that never dries, and that is where a split begins. A puddle in one corner means the fall and the outlet no longer agree. A patch that gives like a bubble underfoot means water is already in the boards.
The wall the roof runs into. An upstand carried high enough up the house wall, a lead cover flashing chased into a mortar joint at the abutment, and on solid walled property a chase pinned and pointed rather than cut deep. A parapet has its coping bedded and a cavity tray formed behind it, not a run of sealant along the top. This is where the leaks are, which is why a proper quote shows more hours at the edges than out in the middle.
Openings, and the pipes below them. A skylight, a lantern, a Velux, an access hatch, a soil pipe or a vent pipe each get a kerb raised or a collar formed. The front edge gets a drip and an apron so water clears the fascia. Then the gutter, the hopper and the downpipe are run through before anyone blames the covering, because a full outlet and a finished roof look identical from a bedroom window.
Cold roof or warm roof, settled by the room. A garage is happy ventilated, with insulation between the joists and air moving above it. Put a utility, a kitchen or a bedroom under the same build up and the vapour reaches a cold deck, condenses on it, and you have interstitial damp with nothing showing on the surface. So the PIR goes above the deck with the vapour control layer beneath it, which is what BS 6229 sets out. A garage is a day. An extension with a new deck is two or three working days.
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.
Sandleheath sits outside the National Park, so New Forest District Council is the planning authority here rather than the National Park Authority. If you are near the boundary, the Park's property map will tell you. A like for like re-cover is maintenance and needs no planning permission, and the Planning Portal sets out where permitted development ends. There is no conservation area over the village and very little is listed. Replace a covering across most of a roof and it becomes a controlled thermal element under Approved Document L, so the insulation is upgraded at the same time and building control gets a building notice or full plans.
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 at the end of a long drive, a utility roof squeezed between a cottage and a boundary wall and a full width rear extension 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 fair drive out along the Avon valley, so ring rather than use the form and we will tell you honestly when an emergency cover can go on. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The rule that only bites when a bedroom is involved
The village drains to the River Avon, and there is a planning rule in this catchment that catches people out halfway through a project. Where a scheme creates somewhere new for a person to sleep, the council has to be satisfied about nutrients reaching the river before it can grant permission. Re-covering a roof does not do that. Nor does mending a leak, nor putting a new covering on a garage. Anybody telling you otherwise has it wrong.
Where it does matter is if the flat roofed extension you are having re-covered is going to become a bedroom, or if a room in the roof is somewhere in your plans for later. Say so while we are there. It changes what gets built now, because the insulation, the deck, the ventilation and the ceiling below are all different once somebody is sleeping under them, and building the warm roof once is far cheaper than stripping a new covering off in a couple of years.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Sandleheath, Alderholt, Fordingbridge, Damerham and the SP6 villages west of the Avon, 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
Sandleheath questions we get asked
Does the whole covering have to come off to put a fall back?
Usually, because the firrings sit on the joists and the covering sits on the firrings. On a warm roof the fall can be formed in the insulation instead, which sometimes saves stripping down to bare boards. We measure what fall you have on the visit and tell you which of the two you are looking at.
Does building it warm raise the roof?
A little. The insulation goes on top of the boards, so the finished level comes up and the upstands and the edge trim have to come up with it. Where a door or a window sits low above the roof, that is the first thing we check, because it can change the design.
Is felt the poor relation now?
No. A proper three layer built up system with a torch on mineral cap sheet is a serious roof, and it takes foot traffic better than most. What gave felt its name is a single layer rolled over a tired deck, which is a different thing altogether.
What happens if it rains the day you strip it?
We only open what we can close. The deck comes off in bays and is made watertight before we leave, and neither GRP nor a bonded sheet will take on damp boards, so a wet week moves the finishing date rather than the price.
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Tell us the address and what you have noticed, and whether the room under it is used. We will look and put an itemised price in writing.