Flat roofing in Sixpenny Handley

A repair, and what that means. Clearing a silted outlet is often an hour. Patching a cracked fold, a burst blister, an opened lap or a loose edge trim is a morning. Cutting out a perished upstand and forming it again is most of a day.

Between them, those repairs cover most of what a flat roof ever needs, and none of them is a re-cover. We follow the falls back from the stain rather than opening the roof up where the ceiling has marked.

A re-cover, and what that means. The old surface comes off, the deck is inspected and the falls are corrected, and only then does the new covering go down. EPDM rubber, one bonded sheet with no seam across the field, for a plain garage. GRP fibreglass, laid wet and cured to a single skin with the trims part of it, for anything that gets walked on. Torch on felt, three layers under a mineral cap sheet, for a roof full of detail. Single ply, hot air welded, for a large span. A small roof can be a day, a garage or an extension two to three working days.

A new deck, and what that means. Plywood, OSB and chipboard are the usual decks, and it is the chipboard that fails. Firm decking gets covered over. Soft decking is taken out, the joists inspected and new boards laid. This is the point at which the falls get set with firrings or with insulation cut on a taper, so water leaves the roof instead of sitting on it. It is also the sensible moment to move the insulation above the deck: rigid PIR with a vapour control layer beneath it, timber held above the dew point, interstitial condensation designed out. BS 6229:2025 on flat roofs explains why, and Approved Document L applies wherever a room sits below.

And the detailing, which is priced one item at a time. Upstand and chased cover flashing. Lead apron where lead is already there. Cavity tray where the wall has a cavity. Parapet and coping. A kerb built for a rooflight, a lantern, a Velux, a hatch, a soil pipe or a vent pipe. Drip and edge trim. Gutter, hopper and downpipe below. Every one of those is somewhere a leak can start, and every one is a separate line on the quote.

A flat roof in Sixpenny Handley, on the Chase, is usually a garage, a kitchen extension or the link between an old house and a newer bit, and Thomas Hannen treats each one differently. He gets up on it, walks it for soft spots and checks the upstands where the covering turns up a wall. He looks at the outlet and the edge trims, and if he needs to see the deck he lifts a small corner.

His written quote lists the tower or scaffold, stripping the old felt or asphalt, any new deck or firrings, insulation, the membrane, each upstand, outlet and trim, and the skip, so nothing is hidden in one total. Start to finish, it is one written price. Wind across the open fields around Sixpenny Handley will lift an unfixed sheet, so each day's section is sealed before we leave and the roof is never open overnight. Old felt goes in our skip and the ground is swept every evening. Should the deck prove rottener than it looked, Thomas sends a photo with the extra cost and waits for your go-ahead.

A re-cover in the same form is maintenance, and Planning Portal guidance marks the limit. A new deck over a room brings in Dorset Council building control, by building notice or an application with full plans. No conservation area covers Sixpenny Handley. If the building is listed, a change of material needs listed building consent before any work starts.

Get a bucket under the drip and, if the ceiling is bulging, keep everyone out of that room. Once a flat roof has split, blistered or peeled back from an upstand, rain goes straight into the ceiling below, and the deck carries on rotting after the weather clears.

Please do not climb up and walk on it, as a soaked deck can give way. On the first visit we get a temporary cover on and start drying it out, and the permanent repair is priced when we know how far the wet has spread through the boards. Booked jobs run Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. With water coming in, call rather than using the form. If the phone goes unanswered, we will call you back as soon as we are able.

Call now: 07435 839745

Sixpenny Handley and its neighbours sit in the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, where the way things look in open country carries more weight than it does in a town. On most flat roofs that changes nothing, because a roof at the back of a house is out of sight from anywhere public and a like for like re-cover is simply maintenance.

But this is high, open ground with footpaths and lanes above the houses, so a flat roof here is more likely than most to be seen from above rather than not seen at all.

Where that is true, the finish is worth a thought. A bright white or a glossy surface reads for a long way across the landscape around Sixpenny Handley, where a dark grey mineral cap sheet or a matt finish disappears. The same applies to a big rooflight or a lantern, which throws light upward at night in a place where people notice it. None of this is a rule and none of it stops the work. It is simply the difference between a roof nobody looks at twice and one that stands out, and we would rather raise it before you choose than after it is on.

Nearby places we also cover for flat roofing, with straight-line distances from Sixpenny Handley, and the other trades we offer in Sixpenny Handley itself.

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