Roof repairs in Ashley

Ashley, New Milton BH25

Leaks, loose hips and lifted felt, put right at the source

If water is dripping through a ceiling in Ashley as you read this, ring 07435 839745 and say which room and which side of the house.

It usually starts small. A hip tile on the bungalow sits a finger width out of line. A brown ring appears on the ceiling beside the chimney breast.

We get onto the roof, check the underside from the loft hatch, and photograph the fault. The repair is then written down line by line, and if the roof is past repairing you get that in writing too, with the evidence.

The repairs

What gives way on a post-war Ashley roof

Half the homes in Ashley went up between 1945 and 1982, and the bungalow is the commonest type, so most roofs here are concrete interlocking tile, hipped or gabled. Another quarter came from the eighties to 2008. This is what fails on them.

Hip and ridge tiles lifting off their mortar. On a sixty year old bungalow every hip and ridge tile sits in sand and cement. The bed shrinks from the tile, frost opens the joint, and the hip tiles creep downhill or rock under your hand. We take off the loose run and chip the old mortar back. Then either we rebed with a fixing through each tile, which keeps the old look, or dry fix to BS 8612 over a ventilated roll with nothing left to crack. BS 5534 wants them held mechanically either way. All four hips and the ridge of a bungalow is a long day or two.

Cracked and slipped concrete tiles after a gale. The south west slopes take the weather here, and the sea is under four kilometres off. Roofs of that era were nailed on some courses only, so a tile held by its lock alone is the one that slides after a blow. We lift the tiles above, slide in the same profile and clip it to the batten. Where a sixties profile is no longer made, we source a reclaimed tile of the same pattern. After a storm, check the verges, ridge ends and the windward hip first, since that face gets the worst of it.

Gable verges shedding mortar. The end tiles sit on a strip of mortar over an undercloak. Once that washes out, wind gets under the verge. We repoint it, or fit clip-on dry verge units screwed to the batten ends. A pair of short gables is about a day.

Perished felt at the eaves. Bitumen felt of this period, with no boarding under it, rots first at the tail that dresses into the gutter. Then water off the bottom course runs behind the gutter and soaks the fascia. We lift the bottom two courses, cut the felt back to sound, fit a plastic eaves carrier tray and relay the tiles, in a morning to a day.

The chimney stack, and valleys. A bungalow of this age often has one stack, built for an open fire and perhaps capped now. Cracked flaunching, lead pulled out of its joint, split soakers or a back gutter choked with moss put a stain on the chimney breast wall. We remake the flaunching and re-dress or renew the lead; see chimney repairs. On an L-shaped plan the valley tiles crack and the lining under them splits or silts up, and the tiles both sides come up to reline it, a day or two.

Houses from the eighties onwards. Brittle dry verge caps, failed ridge clips and leaks round rooflights and soil pipe collars. These roofs are too young to replace, so repair them.

Inter-war clay tiles. Plain tiles hang by their nibs with a nail every few courses. When the nails rust, tiles slip one at a time and we refix them with tile hooks. Tiles sliding right across a slope mean the battens and nails have gone, which is a re-cover.

Flat roofs on garages, porches and back extensions. Felt blisters, splits at a joint, peels off the wall at the upstand, or the edge trim lifts. Over a dry, firm deck we cut out and patch, re-dress the upstand and refix the trim. A deck soft underfoot is wet through and wants a new covering in felt, GRP or EPDM to BS 6229. More on flat roofing in Ashley.

The thatched cottages. Four of the five listed buildings in Ashley are thatched cottages, most of them cob, on Lower Ashley Road and Ashley Common Road. We do not thatch, and the thatch needs a specialist thatcher. A later brick extension under slate or tile, or a brick chimney, we can repair like for like.

Repair or replace. Lift a few tiles and look. If the felt holds together and a screwdriver will not sink into the battens, a sixty year old roof is worth repairing. BRE's tests on sixty year old roof tiles found most still met the strength standard, and that a roof's life depends as much on its battens, felt and nails. Crumbling felt and soft battens across a slope mean patching will keep costing you, and our page for roofers in Ashley covers the whole roof.

How it runs

From your call to a written price

One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, where the fault is and what is being opened up to reach it, each tile, slate, ridge or flashing being renewed and what with, making good, 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.

Ashley is outside the New Forest National Park, so planning here sits with New Forest District Council, and no conservation area covers it. A like for like repair needs no application, as the Planning Portal guidance explains. On the five listed buildings, repairing like for like is fine, but works affecting the character of a listed building need consent.

If it is leaking now

Water coming through a ceiling

Ring rather than use the form. Put a bowl under the drip, keep anything electrical away from the wet patch, and if a ceiling is bulging keep everyone out from under it. The first visit is about finding where the water gets in and making the roof weathertight, and the permanent repair is priced in writing once the fault can be seen properly. If one gutter corner pours onto the ground by the wall, stand a bucket under it until the roof above is sorted. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

Where the water lands

Clay ground and a leaking gutter corner

The ground under Ashley is clay that shrinks in a dry summer and swells again when it is wet. Many roof faults never show indoors. A slipped tile over the gutter line, a rotten felt tail, a split gutter joint or a downpipe knocked out of its gully all send a slope's rain onto the ground, and usually onto the same spot every time. On this ground, a steady run of water at one corner is a question for the foundations as well as the walls, because the clay there stays wet while the rest does not.

So when we repair a roof here, we also look at where that slope's water finishes up. A split gutter joint or a missing downpipe shoe is worth putting right on the same visit. A temporary sheet over storm damage must not shed a whole slope onto one patch beside the wall either. Roof water should go to a drain or gully, as Approved Document H sets out. For the gutters and downpipes themselves, see fascias, soffits and guttering in Ashley.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Ashley

Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Ashley, and the other trades we offer in Ashley itself.

Everything we do in New Milton Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover