Flat Roofing in Woodlands

We start on the surface of a Woodlands roof. Leaf mulch and moss hold damp against a covering right through the winter, and a covering that never fully dries ages at twice the rate. On felt that shows as the mineral cap sheet going bald in patches, then the bitumen underneath hardening and cracking.

On rubber it shows as a green film you can slip on. We brush it off, but if the trees are staying then the roof wants a surface that copes with being brushed: three layer built up felt takes boots and a stiff broom better than anything, and EPDM, a single bonded sheet with no flame used anywhere near old timber, is the easiest thing to keep clean.

Then the fall. Water that cannot run does not evaporate, it sits, and sitting water is what works into a lap and lifts it. Where a roof ponds we take the boarding up and re-cut the fall with firrings, or lay tapered insulation to the same effect, and we aim it at the outlet rather than at the corner where somebody has since built a garden room against the wall.

Then the outlet itself, which out in Woodlands is the part that matters most. A standard domestic outlet is not much wider than a fist and one season of leaves will close it. We fit a guard over it, and where there is room we enlarge it or add a second, so that a blockage becomes an inconvenience instead of a flood. An overflow through the parapet or the fascia costs almost nothing to put in while the covering is off, and it will tell you something is wrong before your ceiling does.

Then the hopper, the gutter and the downpipe, which carry the water away and are the parts nobody has touched in years on a Woodlands outbuilding or garden room. They get cleared, re-fixed and checked for falls of their own. Approved Document H is the standard for rainwater drainage if you want to read what it should be doing.

Only after all of that, the roof build. Under the covering is a deck, and chipboard boarding that has spent years damp has nothing left to save, so it comes out and OSB goes back over joists we have checked while the boards are up. Above or below that deck sits the insulation. If we are stripping anyway we would rather build it warm, with PIR laid over the boarding and the vapour control layer beneath it, so the dew point sits above the timber. Cold roofs, insulated between the joists, depend on a clear ventilated gap, and under trees those gaps block. BS 6229 covers the construction.

The last hour is the detailing, and it is the hour that keeps you dry. A cover flashing chased into the wall, or lead dressed over an apron, where an addition meets the house. A drip trim along every open edge. Coping re-bedded on a parapet with a cavity tray behind it. A kerb built up under any rooflight or lantern so the skylight stands proud of standing water, and a collar on each Velux, hatch, soil pipe and vent pipe. GRP, brushed on wet over new ply and cured as one fibreglass skin, forms its own trims and is a tidy answer on a garden room with a lot of corners. Welded single ply is what we would put over a workshop span. Blisters, bubbles, splits and lifted seams in any of them are repairs: back to sound material, a new piece bonded or welded across, edge dressed down.

The square metres are the easy part. What is under the old covering, and how the water leaves the roof, decide most of it.

How we reach it. A Woodlands garage roof under an oak comes off a tower, but the branches may need tying back first and leaf litter has to be cleared before anything bonds. A flat roof above a two storey back wall needs a scaffold that stands for the whole time the deck is exposed. The work at height rules make the access a line of its own.

The deck itself. On the sixties extensions in Woodlands the deck is often chipboard, and chipboard that has been damp for years crumbles at the edges. Ply that flexes underfoot has to come off too. Nobody can tell which you have from the ground, which is why we lift a corner before pricing.

Falls and outlets. Under the trees in Woodlands a flat roof collects needles and moss that block the outlet, so the water ponds. Correcting the falls with firrings, and giving the outlet a guard, costs more than laying a membrane on a flat deck, but it stops the ponding that killed the old roof.

The system. Torch-on felt, a single ply membrane and a liquid coating each price differently, with different layers and edge details.

Ask any other quote: is the deck being renewed or covered over, are the falls corrected with firrings, and are the upstands, edge trims, skip and scaffold all included?

We work across Woodlands, Netley Marsh, Ashurst, Bartley and Cadnam in SO40, coming over from our base in Boscombe on the Bournemouth side, 17.8 miles away. New Forest National Park Authority handles planning here and New Forest District Council building control.

You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719, registered in England and Wales. The owner is Thomas Hannen, and he is the person who climbs up to your garage or extension and prices the job. One verified customer on Checkatrade gave us a 10 out of 10. The visit is free, and so is the written quote with every item listed. Before you book a visit in Woodlands, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Woodlands 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.