Roof repairs in Ashley Heath
Loose ridges, blocked valleys, lifted flashings and split felt on the bungalows and houses of Ashley Heath, repaired where the water gets in.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Ashley Heath, BH24
Tracing the leak before anyone prices tiles
Yes, we repair roofs in Ashley Heath: a ridge tile that has come loose from its mortar, a valley packed with needles, a lead flashing pulled out of the wall, or a blister in the felt over the garage. Thomas finds the point where water is getting in and puts the repair for that point in writing, after a free site visit.
Got water coming through a ceiling in Ashley Heath right now? Ring 07435 839745 and tell us which room it is in and which way that side of the house faces.
Three faults show up first on a roof like this. A damp patch on the ceiling in the corner where two roof slopes meet. A gutter that runs over at one end every time it rains hard, even though somebody cleared it last year. Or a hip tile sitting crooked after a windy night, with bits of mortar lying in the border underneath.
Each is a single fault with a single cause, and none means your roof is finished. We look from the top and from inside the loft, photograph what is actually wrong, and write the repair down line by line. If the roof has run out of life, you get that in writing too, with the photographs to show why.
The repairs
Where the water is really getting in
Most homes in Ashley Heath are post-war, with the biggest building spell in the seventies and early eighties, and more than half are bungalows. So the typical roof is low and hipped: concrete interlocking tile, ridge and hip tiles bedded in sand and cement, and bitumen felt laid over the rafters with no boards under it. Later houses have dry fixed ridges and plastic verge caps, and a few older buildings carry plain clay tile.
Ridge and hip bedding. Fifty year old mortar shrinks away from the tile, frost opens the joint, and the tile starts to rock or creep down the hip. If only a few tiles are loose and the rest of the bed is hard, we lift those, clean them, and rebed them with a mechanical fixing through each one, as BS 5534 now expects. If the bed crumbles along the whole run, rebedding just starts the clock again, and a dry fix system to BS 8612 is the better repair. A single hip takes part of a day. The ridge and all four hips on a bungalow is a day or two.
Verges on the gables. Once the mortar under the end tiles washes out, the wind lifts the edge. We repoint it on a sound undercloak or fit a clip-on dry verge, and replace brittle plastic verge caps on the newer houses.
Slipped and cracked concrete tiles. Roofs of this age were nailed only on some courses, so a gale or a falling branch shifts a tile held by its lock alone. We lift the course above, slide in a tile of the same profile and clip it down. On an older plain tile roof, where tiles slip one at a time because the nails have rusted through, that is nail sickness, and a tingle or a tile hook holds each one. A few tiles is a matter of hours once we are safely up.
Valleys. On an L-shaped bungalow, or where a garage roof joins the house, a valley carries two slopes of rain into one channel. Needles dam it, water climbs over the tile laps, and the stain shows on the corner ceiling. Sometimes clearing and water-testing it is the whole repair; if the lead has split, we lift the tiles either side and relay it in lead or GRP.
Abutment flashings. Where a lean-to meets the house wall, lead tucked into a mortar joint can pull out, and water runs down inside the wall. We re-dress or renew it in code-rated lead and repoint the joint, never more sealant.
Chimney stacks. Cracked flaunching, a blocked back gutter or split soakers each stain the chimney breast, so we check them before blaming tiles. See chimney repairs.
Felt at the eaves. Unboarded felt rots where it dresses into the gutter, so water runs behind into the fascia. We cut back to sound felt and fit an eaves carrier tray.
Flat roofs on garages, porches and extensions. Blisters, splits at the upstand and water ponding at the outlet. On a dry, firm deck a blister or split is cut out and patched in a few hours. A deck that is soft underfoot needs a new covering, which our page on flat roofing in Ashley Heath covers.
Repair or replace. After a storm, lifted tiles on the south west slope and a cracked ridge are repairs. When battens are soft, the felt crumbles when touched and nails have gone across a whole slope, patching keeps costing you, and the whole roof is a conversation for roofers in Ashley Heath.
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 Heath has no conservation area, so a like for like roof repair needs no planning application, as the Planning Portal guidance explains. Listed entries here include the 1920s shop row at 1 to 4 The High Street, under a plain tile roof with brick stacks and hipped dormers; work that changes its character needs listed building consent from Dorset Council.
Cost
What decides the price of a roof repair
No rate per square metre, because a slipped tile over a porch and the same tile above a three storey gable are one repair and two very different jobs.
Getting to it. Here that runs from a hipped bungalow whose gutter you can touch from a stepladder, through a two storey detached house with a valley over the garage, to a flat roofed extension tucked behind a garden fence. A tile over a porch or a bungalow eaves can often be reached from a ladder and a roof ladder. A ridge, a chimney or a valley on a two storey house usually wants a tower or a scaffold, so a small repair can still need a proper platform. The work at height rules decide that, which is why access is its own line on the quote and not hidden inside the repair.
Finding the cause, not the stain. Water runs along the battens and the underlay before it drips, so the mark on the ceiling is rarely under the fault. Tracing it back to a cracked tile, a lifted flashing, a perished valley or a ridge joint that has opened is part of the job, and a repair priced before anyone has looked is a guess.
What the repair uncovers. Lifting a few tiles shows the battens and the underlay around them. If they are sound the repair stays small. If the felt has perished or the battens have rotted, you get a photograph and a separate written price before anything more is done. Where patching stops being worth it is a conversation you have with the facts in front of you.
Comparing quotes? Ask what fault they actually found and where, whether access is included, what is being replaced and with what (a matched tile, new or reclaimed slate, which code of lead), whether the ridge and verge are being bedded in mortar or mechanically fixed, and what happens if more is found once the roof is open. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
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 a branch is lying on the roof, stay off the ladder and leave it to us. 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.
Worth knowing
Roofs under the pines
Ashley Heath sits among pine: Moors Valley Country Park and Forest on Horton Road, Ringwood Forest to the north, and wooded plots between the houses. Under those trees a leak can start with debris, not a broken tile. Needles pack a valley, fill the side channels of interlocking tiles and sit in the gutter outlet, and the water backs up over the laps or behind the fascia. So clear it and run water down it before anyone prices new tiles.
On a shaded slope, moss holds wet against the headlaps. Take it off by hand, never with a pressure washer on concrete tiles, and use only a moss treatment approved under the biocides regime the HSE administers.
If a valley under trees has to be relaid, choose an open lead or GRP valley that sheds debris, with an outlet you can reach, and consider gutter guards. After a gale, check the ridge and the slope that faces the trees for a branch strike. Cutting a tree back is your decision, but check with Dorset Council first. For the gutters see fascias, soffits and guttering in Ashley Heath.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Ashley Heath is BH24, in St Leonards and St Ives parish, 7.1 miles from our base at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe. We repair roofs from Woolsbridge Road to Pine Manor Road. 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.
Nearby, and next door
Roof repairs near Ashley Heath
Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Ashley Heath, and the other trades we offer in Ashley Heath itself.
Roof repairs nearby
Our other trades in Ashley Heath
Everything we do in West Moors Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover
Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Ashley Heath
My hip tiles move but nothing is leaking yet. Can it wait?
Not through a winter. A rocking hip tile has lost its bed, and a strong wind can lift it off onto the tiles below. Fixing it before it leaks is a smaller job than repairing the felt and ceiling afterwards.
My bungalow roof is low. Does that make a repair simpler?
The access is usually simpler, because the eaves are within reach of a ladder and a low hip can be worked from roof ladders without a full scaffold. What sets the repair is still the fault itself, and a low pitch hipped roof has more hip and valley length per square metre of tile, which is where the old mortar lets go.
What does a roof repair cost?
We do not publish figures, because the price comes from the fault and how we reach it. Access, how much has to come up to get at the cause, what the battens and felt look like underneath and whether a matching tile is needed all set it. You get an itemised written price after the free visit, and how we price a job explains each line.
Needles keep blocking my gutter. Is that a roof problem?
It can become one. When the outlet blocks, the water backs up behind the fascia and into the eaves felt, and a valley packed with needles sends rain over the tile laps. Clearing the valley and outlet and water-testing them comes before any talk of new tiles, and a gutter guard helps under pines.
Is my roof covered if a tree comes down on it?
That is for your home insurance to answer, so ring them before any permanent repair. We can give you dated photographs of the damage and an itemised quote to send them. The ABI sets out what the insurance industry means by a storm.
Free quote
Tell us what your Ashley Heath roof is doing
Send the BH24 postcode and a line about the fault. Thomas comes out, finds the cause, and writes the repair down item by item, free of charge.