Flat roofing in Wool

A repair is the smallest job. One thing has failed and the rest of the roof is sound: a split at an upstand, a blister standing off the boards, a trim worked loose, a lap opened at a corner, an outlet packed with grit.

Felt is cut back, primed and welded in under a fresh cap sheet. GRP fibreglass is ground out at the crack and laminated again. EPDM rubber is cleaned and bonded down. Hours rather than days, and worth having while the rest of the surface still bends. The only test that matters is whether the deck under the fault is dry.

The edges, without the middle. Most people do not know this one exists, and on roofs of this age in Wool it is often the right answer. The field of the covering is still sound but everything around it has gone: the edge trim and its drip, the apron at the front, the upstand where the flat meets the house, the coping on a parapet and the cavity tray behind it, the kerb round a rooflight. We renew that perimeter, weld or bond the covering back into it, and leave a surface that still has years in it doing the job it is doing.

The full job, down to the joists. Where the deck has gone there is no shortcut. Chipboard decking that has been wet loses its strength and sags between the joists, so it comes off and new boards go down. Plywood or OSB that has stayed dry takes a covering without argument. The falls are then rebuilt so the roof drains at an outlet, to the fall BS 6229 sets out, because standing water forces itself into every lap and seam and a frost then splits them apart. Roofs of this vintage are cold roofs, insulation between the joists with a dead void above it, which is where condensation gathers and interstitial damp rots the deck without a mark showing on top. Built back warm, the PIR goes on top of the deck and the vapour control layer underneath, and no cold void is left at all. The covering goes on last: EPDM rubber in one sheet, GRP fibreglass, a new three layer torch on system, or single ply hot air welded on a long straight roof.

The things that come up through it. A rooflight, a lantern, a Velux, an access hatch or a soil and vent pipe each want their own kerb and collar rather than a bead of sealant. Where the flat runs into brickwork a lead cover flashing is chased in, cut so it can move without tearing. Then the gutter, the hopper and the downpipe below are cleared and run through, because a full outlet and a finished covering look identical from indoors.

On a flat roof, the covering is the cheap part. The deck, the falls and the edges decide the bill.

Reaching it. A detached garage on a corner plot in Wool comes off a tower with room to spare. A kitchen extension at the back of a terrace means every roll and board is carried through a side passage or the house. A dormer roof above a bedroom needs a scaffold, and the work at height rules make that platform a line of its own for as long as the deck is open.

The deck. Many seventies garages and extensions in Wool were decked in chipboard. Once that has been wet it swells and loses strength, and it has to be replaced, not covered. Ply that flexes needs the same. We check a corner before quoting.

Falls and outlets. A roof laid dead flat ponds, and standing water finds every weak lap. Firrings put a fall back and point the water to an outlet or gutter that works. Upstands, edge trims and outlets are priced one by one, because that is where the leaks start.

The system. Torch-on felt in layers, single ply membrane and liquid coatings differ in cost and life.

Ask any other roofer quoting: is the deck being replaced or overlaid, are firrings included, and are the upstands, edge trims, scaffold and skip all in the price?

More than half of Wool's housing was built between 1945 and the early 1980s. Many of the flat roofs added in those decades are now reaching the end of their life, so a street can have several garages or extensions starting to leak around the same time, and that is why the fault is nearly always the same fault: trims, upstands and outlets rather than the covering itself.

That is worth knowing in Wool. It usually means a smaller job than you feared, because renewing a perimeter is not the same thing as re-covering a roof. And it means a neighbour's quote is a fair guide to your own, which very rarely happens in this trade. Where several roofs on one street need doing we would rather look at them on the same day and price them together, since the access and the waste are the parts that share. The older core of Wool is a conservation area, so on a roof that shows from a road it is worth checking with Dorset Council before you change a colour or a material.

We re-cover flat roofs in Wool, East Burton, Bovington, Winfrith and the villages across West Purbeck, plus the rest of BH20, 17.1 miles from our Boscombe base. Dorset Council is the planning authority and does building control as well.

The business trades as Bournemouth Roofing & Building and is registered as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, number 15471719, in England and Wales. Thomas Hannen, who owns it, lifts the edge of your deck himself before any figure is written. A verified customer gave a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. We make no charge for the survey or the quote. Before you book a visit in Wool, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Wool 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.