Roof repairs in Barton on Sea

Roof repairs

Put the fault right and keep the roof

If water is coming through a ceiling now, ring 07435 839745 and tell us which room it is under and which way the wind was blowing.

It might be a hip tile sitting crooked on the corner of the bungalow after a night of wind off the sea. If yours is a chalet bungalow, it might be a damp patch in the upstairs room, just beside the dormer window. Or the kitchen extension drips by the back door whenever it rains hard, and the last person who looked at it put more mastic on.

A low roof lets us get close to the fault from a roof ladder or small tower. We check the loft too, photograph what we find and write down what it needs, and if the roof has had its day we say so.

The repairs

What fails on a hipped bungalow roof, and the fix

Most homes in Barton on Sea went up after the war, with the peak in the late fifties and early sixties, and 42% of them are bungalows. Bungalows of that era were usually hipped or part hipped, and usually covered in concrete interlocking tile on bitumen felt, often with no boarding underneath. If yours is a chalet bungalow with dormers, or an older house in plain clay tile, the weak points shift a little, and each one is below.

Hip and ridge tiles working loose. A hipped bungalow has four hips running almost down to the gutter, and every one was bedded in sand and cement. Frost cracks that bedding and a gust levers the tile up. We strip the run and rebed it with a screw or clip through each tile, or put it on a dry system to BS 8612 that has no mortar left to crumble. BS 5534, the code of practice for slating and tiling, expects a mechanical fixing whichever way it is done. On the seaward slope the new clips and screws are stainless or non-ferrous.

Verges on the gables. Chalet bungalows and gable ended houses lose the mortar under their end tiles in lumps. Dry verge caps, fixed into the batten ends, take its place. A pair of gables is about a day.

Slipped or cracked interlocking tiles. An interlocking tile keeps the water out only while its side lock sits snug in the next tile. When a nail rusts or the batten beneath goes soft, the tile creeps down and the lock opens. We ease up the courses above, fit a tile of the same profile and clip or nail it in. Where a profile is no longer made we look for a reclaimed one, since a near match leaves the lock open.

Felt rotting at the eaves. The old felt goes brittle first where it dips into the gutter, tears, and lets water run down the back of the fascia instead of into the gutter. We lift the bottom courses, cut out the perished strip, fit an eaves carrier tray and lap new membrane over it. If the felt and battens have gone right across the slopes, patching stops paying, and that is a conversation for our roofers in Barton on Sea.

Dormers. Each dormer brings three leak points: the cheeks, where lead soakers and step flashing run down each side against the tiles; the apron flashing under the window; and the small valleys where the dormer roof meets the main slope. A split soaker shows as a stain on the sloping ceiling beside the window. We renew the soakers and re-dress or replace the flashing in code-rated lead, cut in short lengths so it can move.

Chimneys. A bungalow here has fewer chimneys than a house, and the ones left sit low on a hip or close to the ridge. Water gets in at the flashings, the back gutter on the uphill side of the stack, or cracked flaunching on top. See chimney repairs.

Flat roofs over garages, porches and extensions. Mostly felt, with GRP and EPDM on newer work. Blisters, a split along a lap and a puddle that never drains are the signs. Whether a patch will hold depends on the deck under it, covered in the questions below. More on flat roofing in Barton on Sea. Where that roof meets the house is covered below.

Valleys. On the inter-war houses and the later detached ones, a valley is mortared valley tiles, old lead or a GRP trough. It carries two slopes of water, so a split lets in a lot. We lift the tiles either side and relay it. Sealant brushed over a split is not a repair we will sell you.

After a south westerly, with tiles on the lawn, we make the roof weathertight first and price the proper repair after. See emergency roof repairs.

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.

Barton on Sea has no conservation area of its own, and New Forest District Council is the planning authority, so mending an unlisted house with matching materials needs no application; Planning Portal guidance on roofs explains where that stops. The National Park boundary is not far off, so if you are unsure which side an address falls, check the National Park Authority's interactive property map.

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. Tell us which side of the house the water shows on. 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

The ground here

A leak that keeps opening at the same join

If your bungalow has had a flat roofed garage, rear extension, porch or conservatory added, read this. The ground in Barton is clay-rich. It shrinks in a dry summer and swells again through a wet winter, and an extension on its own, shallower footing moves by a different amount from the house. So a leak where an extension roof or lean-to meets the house, filled with mortar or mastic and cracked again, is movement and not bad luck.

That changes the repair. We make the join with a detail that can move: lead cover and step flashing dressed over the upstand and chased into a mortar joint, or on a felt, GRP or EPDM roof a proper flexible upstand and termination to BS 6229:2025 on flat roofs. A fresh cement fillet would crack on the same line by next winter.

We also look at any crack in the brick or render near the join. If it looks fresh or is still widening, that is for a structural surveyor, and we will say so. A gutter spilling at the foot of that wall goes on the same quote, since wet clay makes the movement worse. See fascias, soffits and guttering in Barton on Sea.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Barton on Sea

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

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