Flat roofing in Wimborne Minster
Yard roofs, back additions and parapet roofs across Wimborne Minster and Colehill, with the access priced honestly.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Wimborne's flat roofs are mostly out of sight: back additions off the town centre lanes, yard roofs behind the shops, and the roofs over the flats above them. Renewing the covering is maintenance. Getting the materials in and the rubbish out is often the harder half.
A third of the homes here are flats or maisonettes and a good share of the older centre is pre-1900, so the flat roofs sit behind stone and brick frontages with narrow access. People ring when a top floor ceiling stains, when water shows on the wall beside a flat roof, when felt has gone hard and split at the laps, or when a parapet gutter has backed up and put water inside the building instead of outside it.
We look at the covering, the parapet and the outlets together, because on this kind of building they fail as one thing.
The work
Yard roofs, back additions and the flats above the shops
The parapet, and the gutter behind it. On a town centre building the flat roof drains inside the line of the walls, so the outlet, the hopper and the downpipe are surrounded by structure. A blockage there does not run down the outside of the building. It fills a gutter and comes over an upstand into the top of a wall, which is why the damp so often shows high up inside. We run water through and prove where it is going before quoting for a covering.
The covering, repaired. On an occupied building a repair that takes a morning is worth a great deal. A split at a lap, a blister lifted off the deck, a seam failed between two sheets, a trim whose fixings have pulled. Torch on felt is cut out, primed and welded back under a fresh cap sheet. A crack in GRP fibreglass is ground out and re-laminated. EPDM rubber is cleaned and bonded down again.
The covering, renewed. EPDM rubber lays as one sheet with no joints across the field. GRP fibreglass is formed in place, which suits a yard roof full of kerbs, outlets and a rooflight. A built up three layer torch on felt system still does a lot of the back additions here, and single ply is the answer over a whole ground floor behind a shop. An old lead roof behind a parapet that is still sound is left alone.
The deck and the fall. A Victorian back addition often carries plain boarding across the joists rather than plywood, OSB or chipboard, and it was laid nearly level. Firrings over the joists, or tapered insulation inside a warm roof, get the water moving to the rainwater outlet again. Ponding holds grit and moss on the surface and stops the roof drying, and standing water in a corner tells you the fall and the outlet have parted company. A bubble underfoot means the boards have already taken water.
The junctions, and the height of everything. A lead cover flashing dressed into a chase raked out of a mortar joint, the drip and apron at the front edge, the kerb round a rooflight, a coping and a cavity tray formed rather than sealed, and a collar round every skylight, lantern, Velux, hatch, soil pipe and vent pipe. Raising a parapet to take the extra thickness of a warm roof is a detail to design rather than improvise, and a warm roof is what we would build over a flat: PIR above the deck, the vapour control layer below it, the dew point clear of the timbers, no condensation and no interstitial damp. BS 6229 covers it. A yard roof is a day, a back addition with a new deck 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.
Dorset Council is the planning authority, and the Wimborne Minster conservation area covers the town centre. A like for like re-cover is maintenance and needs no planning permission, while a change of appearance on anything visible from a street or a footpath is where the question starts. There are listed entries in the centre, and on a listed building consent is needed for work affecting the character of a listed building, so listed building consent is worth settling first. Renewing most of a covering makes the roof a controlled thermal element in Approved Document L, the insulation is upgraded as part of it, and building control is told on a building notice.
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 yard roof reached only through a shop, a back addition on a terrace off the square and a flat roof over a suburban garage are three different jobs before a sheet 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 short run up the road from the yard, so a Wimborne address normally gets an emergency cover the same day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
In the town centre, access is priced before the roof is
The conservation area over the centre is about appearance, and most of these flat roofs cannot be seen from anywhere public, so the covering is usually your choice and we will say so on the visit. What actually shapes a town centre quote is getting to the roof. A back addition behind a terrace off the square can have no vehicle access at all: everything goes through the building or over a wall, the old covering comes out the same way, and the platform has to be built in a space measured in feet rather than metres.
That is why two quotes for the same small roof in Wimborne can look so different. One has priced a scaffold, a permit and hand loading, and the other has assumed a van on the pavement. Tell us when you ring whether there is a rear lane, a shared yard or only the front door, and whether the building is occupied during the day. It changes the method, and it goes on the quote as its own line rather than turning up as an extra later.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Wimborne Minster, Colehill, Pamphill, Merley and the BH21 side of the Stour, and the site visit costs you nothing. 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
Wimborne Minster questions we get asked
Water is coming in at the top of the wall inside. Is that the flat roof?
Often it is the parapet gutter behind it. On a parapet roof the outlet and downpipe run inside the building line, so a blockage puts water into the structure rather than down the outside wall. We run water through to prove where it is going before quoting.
A third of the town is flats. Who orders work on the roof?
On a leasehold flat the roof belongs to the freeholder and is paid for out of the service charge, so the managing agent orders it. We will still look and put the fault in writing on a free site visit, so you have something to send them.
Do I need permission in the conservation area?
Not for a like for like re-cover. It is a change of appearance on something visible from a street or footpath that raises the question, and Dorset Council is who you ask. On a listed building, ask before anything is ordered, even where the roof is out of sight.
How long does the work take?
A yard roof is a day. A back addition needing a new deck, firrings to put a fall back and a flashing chased into the wall is two or three working days, and hand loading through a building adds to that. We will not open a deck we cannot close the same day.
Nearby, and next door
Flat roofing near Wimborne Minster
Flat roofing nearby
Our other trades in Wimborne Minster
Everything we do in Wimborne Flat roofing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a price for your Wimborne Minster flat roof
Tell us the address, what you have noticed and how we would get to the roof. We will come and look, and put an itemised price in writing.