Flat roofing in Sopley
Flat roofs repaired, re-covered and rebuilt as warm roofs around Sopley and the BH23 addresses in the Avon valley.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most flat roofs in Sopley are the same age and the same build: insulation between the joists, felt on top, no ventilation worth the name. When that comes off, the sensible question is not what covering to use but whether to rebuild it as a warm roof.
The calls out of Sopley are mostly back additions and garages. A kitchen or bathroom roof on the back of a terrace that has started marking the ceiling. A garage in a run where the covering has torn at the corner. Now and then a garden room or a store that has never drained properly since the day it went up. We come out, get on the roof, look at where the water is meant to leave, feel the deck underfoot and check what is under it. You get photographs of what we found and a written itemised price.
The work
Back additions, garage runs and the roofs on the terraces
Back additions on terraces. Small roofs, tight to a neighbour, often with a parapet or a shared boundary wall on one or both sides. EPDM rubber is a good fit because it goes down as one sheet with bonded seams, so there is little to fail in a small area. GRP fibreglass suits one with steps, kerbs or a change in level. The awkward part is not the covering, it is getting materials through and keeping the neighbour's side dry.
Garages, singly and in runs. Mostly felt, three layers built up beneath a mineral cap sheet, over plywood, OSB or chipboard, and now brittle. Where the deck is dry it is a strip and re-lay, in a modern torch on system on a plain span or in single ply welded at the laps where a whole run is going at once. Chipboard that has been wet has to come off, and no photograph will tell you which sort you have.
Falls, outlets and the everyday faults. Firrings give a flat roof its falls, and without them water stands. Ponding and standing water then work on every lap and seam under them. Blisters and bubbles, a split or crack where a covering has hardened, a lifted or failed seam at a corner, and a rainwater outlet packed with moss are what we are usually called to. The outlet, the hopper, the gutter and the downpipe are checked as one thing, because a roof that cannot drain is not a roof.
Cold roof, warm roof and the vapour side of it. A cold roof puts the insulation between the joists and needs a ventilated void above it. A warm roof puts PIR over the deck above a vapour control layer, so the timber sits the warm side of the dew point and interstitial condensation stops forming inside the build up. Where headroom is tight, tapered insulation gives you falls and thickness together. BS 6229 is the code both come from, and it is why we ask what is under the covering before pricing.
Junctions and openings. Where a flat roof meets brickwork the abutment gets a chase and a lead cover flashing, not a bead of mastic, and where there is a parapet the coping and any cavity tray get looked at. At the perimeter it is the edge trim, the drip and the apron. A rooflight, a lantern or a Velux sits on a kerb that has to be formed, insulated and dressed, and the same goes for a soil pipe or a vent pipe through the deck.
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.
Re-covering in the same materials is maintenance, so no planning permission and no application: ordinary permitted development, with Planning Portal guidance setting out where that stops. The old part of the village around the church sits in a conservation area, which narrows that a little for anything visible, so it is worth knowing which side of the line your address is. Building control is separate: strip most of a covering and you are renovating a thermal element, so the work is notifiable and the insulation is held to Part L under Approved Document L.
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 back addition reached only through a shared alley, a garage in a run and a garden room on an open plot are three different jobs once you count how the materials arrive. 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. Sopley is one of the closest villages on our patch, so an emergency sheeting is normally the same day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A village of cold roofs, all reaching the same point
Three quarters of the housing here went up between the war and the early eighties, and the flat roofs came with it. That means they are almost all cold roofs: insulation dropped between the joists, a felt covering over the deck, and a void in between that was meant to breathe and rarely does. Plenty of them are damp underneath without ever having leaked, which is condensation rather than rain.
So when one of these coverings finally goes, you are not simply buying a new membrane. You are deciding whether to keep a build up that has never worked or to turn it into a warm roof while the deck is open, and that is far cheaper decided now. Where the work is notifiable the insulation has to be brought up to standard anyway. We put both on the same quote so you can see the difference rather than take our word for it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Sopley, Winkton, Bransgore and the BH23 addresses in the Avon valley, with New Forest District Council as the planning authority. 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
Sopley questions we get asked
There is black mould on the ceiling but no obvious leak. Is that the roof?
It often is, in a different way. A cold roof with no ventilation collects moisture inside the build up, and it shows as mould and damp timber rather than a drip. The cure is either proper ventilation of the void or rebuilding it as a warm roof, and which one depends on what is up there.
The neighbour's roof joins ours. Does that complicate it?
It needs thinking about rather than avoiding. Where two flat roofs meet at a boundary the detail has to be closed properly, and if work affects a shared structure that is a conversation to have before it starts. We will set out on the quote exactly where our work stops.
Is a warm roof much more disruptive?
No. The difference is what goes down once the deck is exposed: a vapour control layer, boards of PIR and then the membrane, rather than the membrane alone. It raises the roof level slightly, which is why thresholds and upstands get checked first.
How long does the work take?
A garage roof is a day. A back addition with new decking, firrings, a warm build up and fresh trims runs to two or three working days once access is up. You get the run of days on the free site visit rather than on the morning we arrive.
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Get a price for your Sopley flat roof
Send the address and what you have noticed. We will look at the deck and the build up, then put an itemised price in writing.