Recent Roofing & Building Projects in Bournemouth

Roofs, plastering, brickwork, driveways and insulation. Every photo below is a real job of ours, captioned with what you are actually looking at. Tap any image to see it full size.

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Roofing

Roofs, flat roofs and leadwork

What to look at in these photographs is the detailing, not the finish. Whether the ridge and the hips run through in a straight line. How the lead is dressed where the roof meets a chimney. Whether the edge trim on a flat roof is level and the upstands are formed rather than folded. How a mortar joint is finished across a whole elevation instead of just the bit at eye level. Those are the parts that decide how long a job lasts, and they are the parts a photograph will actually show you.

New coverings, retiles, flat roof systems and the lead detailing that stops water getting in where the roof meets something else.

Completed grey tiled hipped roof with a chimney stack — **Completed hipped roof** Grey interlocking tiles on a hipped bungalow roof, ridge and both hips run through straight and the stack left clean at the end. Straight hips are the thing to look at here. If the batten gauge drifts anywhere on the slope, the hip line shows it up from the ground.

Hipped roof mid-retile showing breather membrane and battens on one slope — **Retile in progress** The same roof as the one beside it, with a slope still open. It came off to the rafters and went back on breather membrane and treated battens rather than lifting a few tiles and patching round the sound ones. On the bungalow roofs through Broadstone and West Moors it is the battens you find first, and they are usually what turns a repair into a strip.

Grey GRP fibreglass flat roof with three rooflights — **GRP flat roof** Fibreglass finish with three rooflights set into the deck.

Lead flashing dressed and welted at a roof junction — **Leadwork detail** Lead dressed and welted at a roof junction.

Plastering & rendering

Inside and out

Room skims and feature walls indoors, render and K Render outside. The pink you can see is fresh plaster still drying. It goes off to a pale cream before decorating.

Chimney breast hacked back to bare backing before skimming, with the room sheeted up — **Chimney breast stripped back** A chimney breast hacked back before skimming, in a room that stayed in use around us. It came off to the backing across the whole breast rather than being patched, because a patch over a blown section cracks again along the join. The interwar houses through Bournemouth and Poole are full of breasts like this one, where the surround stays put and the plaster comes off around it.

Lounge walls and archway freshly skimmed in pink plaster — **Lounge skimmed** Walls, ceiling and the archway taken back to a flat finish.

Plastered media wall with a TV recess and an opening for a fire — **Media wall** Recess formed for the TV, opening below for the fire.

Bungalow finished in white render with a grey tiled roof and resin driveway — **Rendered bungalow** White render, grey roof and a resin drive to the front.

Before & after

Bare blockwork to finished render

Two-panel photo of the same elevation: bare grey blockwork on the left, finished cream render on the right — The same elevation before and after. Bare blockwork on the left; scratch coat, top coat and finished cream render on the right, with the beads and edges run in straight.

Brickwork & stone

New walls, repairs and repointing

Garden walls, corners and plinths built new, stone cladding, and old mortar joints raked out and replaced so the wall sheds water instead of holding it.

Red brick garden wall with a diamond feature panel — **Brick garden wall** Diamond feature panel set into the face of the wall.

New brick corner with a plinth course and an airbrick — **New corner and plinth** Plinth course run out and an airbrick built in.

Gable end clad in coursed stone — **Stone-clad gable** Coursed and pointed up to the verge.

Repointing the mortar joints of a red brick pier — **Repointing a pier** Old mortar raked out, fresh joints struck.

Driveways & patios

Resin, block paving, tarmac and porcelain

Four different surfaces, all laid on a proper base. Which one suits you depends on the drive, the drainage and how much maintenance you want to do.

Light grey resin bound driveway sweeping past a clipped hedge to a red brick house — **Resin driveway** Light grey resin bound stone, laid in one pass across the whole turning area so there are no joints and no kerb line to break it up. It follows the hedge and the shrub bed round instead of cutting a straight edge across them, which is what resin is good for on a drive this shape. Around Ferndown and West Parley the drives are often this wide, and what sits under the surface decides whether resin can go straight over the top.

Grey block paved driveway with a curved charcoal border — **Block paving** Grey tumbled blocks in mixed sizes laid random, with a charcoal border sweeping round in a curve. The curve is set out before a single block goes down, which is why the border holds the same width the whole way round instead of tapering off at the end. The next photograph is the same drive from further back.

Block paved driveway seen from the road end, with the garage and front door of a cream rendered house — **The same drive, wider** The same drive from the road end, with the garage in shot. The charcoal border runs unbroken from the fence line round to the entrance and finishes on a soldier course across the kerb, so there is no ragged edge where the drive meets the pavement. Bungalows built to this pattern, rendered with the garage in the front elevation, run all through Bearwood, Broadstone and the Poole side.

Brindle block paving laid in a small rear yard beside white French doors — **Brindle blocks, rear yard** Brindle blocks in a small rear yard, laid in a stretcher bond and edged with a charcoal course that turns the corner and carries across the threshold of the doors. A yard this tight has no room for a machine, so the base goes in by barrow and the setting out has to be right the first time. Behind the Christchurch and Poole terraces most of them are about this size.

Black tarmac driveway edged with buff block paving — **Tarmac driveway** Black tarmac across the whole forecourt, edged in buff blocks where it meets the road. The edging is the part that matters, because tarmac has no restraint of its own and crumbles back from any open side that is not held. The inspection cover is set flush into the surface rather than left standing proud of it.

Grey porcelain patio slabs photographed wet — **Porcelain patio** Large format grey porcelain, shot wet after the whole patio was washed down. Wet is the honest way to photograph porcelain, because water finds any slab sitting proud of its neighbour and shows it up as a line. The next photograph is the same garden from the far end.

Grey porcelain patio in the foreground with a striped lawn running back to a summerhouse — **The same garden, wider** The same garden from the far end, patio in the foreground and the lawn running back to the summerhouse. The slabs are cut to a curve where they meet the grass, so the edge follows the shape of the garden rather than squaring it off, and a shingle margin runs along the fence line. Gardens like this one, cordyline in the corner, run all the way along the coast through Highcliffe and Barton on Sea.

Insulation & building work

Lofts, conversions and extensions

Insulation is one of the few jobs nobody sees once it is finished, so here it is before the boards go on. After it, two extensions caught mid build, one at blockwork stage and one with the roof going on.

Celotex rigid insulation boards fitted between roof rafters — **Celotex between rafters** Rigid boards cut tight and fitted between the rafters.

Loft conversion insulated with foil-faced boards and mineral wool around a Velux window — **Loft conversion** Foil-faced boards and mineral wool, worked around the Velux.

Single storey extension with blockwork walls up to plate height and a beam over a wide opening — **Extension blockwork** Single storey extension with the blockwork up to plate height and the openings formed. The beam is in over the wide opening and already carrying the course above it, and the reveals are brought out in facing brick so the frames have something square and solid to sit against. The floor is beam and block, which gives a clean deck to work off while the walls go up.

Brick extension walls up to the coping seen from scaffolding, with clay roof tiles stacked on the wall head — **Extension roof going on** Brickwork up to the coping, shot off the scaffold with the roof structure going in behind the wall. The clay tiles are stacked along the wall head ready to be spread out across it rather than hauled up a course at a time. Behind it is the original hipped roof the new one has to tie into, and that junction is the part that decides whether it ever leaks.

Rear house extension under construction with scaffolding, blockwork walls and a steel beam — **Rear extension** Scaffold up, blockwork built, steel beam in place.

More photos on the way. These are the jobs we had a camera out for. If you are the owner and you have shots of work we have not put up yet, especially proper before-and-after pairs taken from the same spot, email them over to admin@bournemouthroofingandbuilding.com and we will add them. Two photos from the same angle are worth more than ten good ones from different places.

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