Roof repairs in Boscombe
Leaking stacks, dormer cheeks, slipped slate and loose terracotta ridges on Boscombe's villas, terraces and flats, repaired in matching materials.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Roof repairs
One leak, one cause, one written price
Yes, we repair roofs in Boscombe, from our base on Wolverton Road. On an old slate or clay roof here the fault is usually in one place: a slipped slate, a leaking chimney or dormer, or a loose ridge. We trace where the water gets in, mend that point in matching materials, and put the price in writing after a free site visit.
If water is coming through a ceiling now, ring 07435 839745 and tell us which floor you are on and which room it is in.
Rain is running down a bedroom chimney breast where no fire has been lit for decades. The plaster under the little dormer in a roof-space room has gone soft and brown. Or a tenant has reported a drip, and you need to know if it is the roof, the gutter or next door's valley.
We go up where it is safe, look inside the roof void wherever there is a hatch, and photograph the fault. If the slope has no life left, the photographs will show it, and whether to repair or replace becomes a question for our roofers in Boscombe. How we trace a leak in general is on our Bournemouth roof repairs page.
What goes wrong here
Slate villas, dormer rooms and chimneys nobody uses
More than half the homes in Boscombe predate the First World War, most of them villas and terraces now split into flats. BCP Council's appraisal for Churchill Gardens, the streets around Churchill Road, Borthwick Road and Walpole Road, describes what sits on top: grey natural slate or red clay tile, rooms in the roof space lit by small pitched dormers, decorative chimney stacks, and perforated terracotta ridge tiles with finials. Each lets water in its own way.
Chimneys that no longer serve a fire. The appraisal notes that many of the original stacks are out of use but were kept. A dead stack still takes the weather. The flaunching round the pots cracks, an open pot sends rain down the flue to a bedroom chimney breast, the back gutter silts up and the stepped flashing pulls out of the joints. We re-flaunch, fit a vented cap to each pot so the flue still breathes, and renew the soakers, flashing and back gutter in rolled lead, about a day once a tower or scaffold is up. Taking the stack down changes the roofline, and on a building in flats that can need planning permission. Work on the brickwork itself is under chimney repairs.
Dormers in the roof-space rooms. In a converted villa these rooms are the top flat's bedrooms. A small dormer has three weak points: the lead cheeks, the soakers where its sides meet the slates, and the little flat roof on top, in felt, GRP or EPDM, which blisters, splits or lifts at the upstand. There is no loft to catch the water, so it comes straight through the ceiling. We lift the slates beside the cheek, renew soakers and cheeks in lead, and re-cover the top if the deck under it is sound. Dormer tops and the flat roofs over back additions have their own page, flat roofing in Boscombe.
Slate on one slope, concrete tile on the next. The same appraisal records that many of the original slate roofs were swapped for concrete interlocking tile. So one half of a pair of villas may be slate and the other concrete. The joins fail first: a valley or hip where two coverings meet, cut pieces packed with mortar, a missing tile or broken tile nobody could match. Concrete tile on a pitch built for slate can sit below the maker's minimum, so wind drives rain up under the laps. We rebuild the join, usually in lead, and patch the slate side with reclaimed slate of the same size and colour, checked against the A, T and S codes for natural slate.
Terracotta ridge and finials. The perforated clay ridge and the finials sit on mortar bedding. When it crumbles the ridge rocks, a finial drops and water gets in along the top. A plain modern ridge keeps it dry but loses the look a conservation area expects. We lift the sound pieces, rebed them with a mechanical fixing into each as BS 5534 expects, and source a salvaged match for any that broke. Where the profile allows, a dry ridge to BS 8612 can sit under the original pieces, with dry verge at the gables. A ridge run is about a day.
Outriggers, valleys and parapet gutters at the back. Where a rear outrigger roof meets the main wall and drains into a valley or parapet gutter, mortar fillets crack and lead splits at its joints. We replace fillets with stepped lead and relay a split valley in new lead.
Shops with flats over them. Along Christchurch Road the leak into an upper flat is usually at the back: a box gutter between buildings, a flat roof over the rear store, or a hidden outlet, reached from the yard behind.
Gutters mistaken for the roof. On a three storey house a blocked or sagging cast iron gutter throws water against the top of the wall, and the top flat's ceiling stains as if a slate had gone. We check the gutter and downpipes first. Replacing them is on fascias, soffits and guttering in Boscombe.
Close to the sea, nails rust sooner, so slates slip in runs. Where nail sickness has loosened one course, it is refixed into sound battens. When slates are sliding all over a slope, patching stops making sense and the slope needs relaying.
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.
Boscombe has five conservation areas of its own, and the council keeps the list. A repair in matching slate or tile needs no application inside or outside them. Changing the covering or a chimney is where BCP Council comes in, and on the 13 listed entries, among them the Church of St John the Evangelist, listed building consent can apply.
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. In Boscombe that can be a three storey villa beyond any ladder, a Churchill Gardens terrace with no side passage, or a later block of flats where the agent sets the access rules. 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. In a house split into flats, the stain shows in the top flat but the fault can sit over a neighbour's part of the roof, so let the other flats know and find out who holds a key to the roof hatch. 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
Leaking into a flat? Whose job it is, and why like-for-like wins
Roughly four homes in five in Boscombe are flats, so the person with the stain usually does not own the roof above it. If you own a leasehold flat, the roof normally belongs to the freeholder and is repaired through the service charge. Report the leak to the managing agent in writing, with photographs of the ceiling and the date it started. A bigger job means consulting every leaseholder first under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, once the cost passes a set amount per leaseholder. If you rent, the repair falls to your landlord, because the law makes a landlord keep the structure and exterior in repair. Either way we can write a photographed, itemised repair scope addressed to whoever pays.
BCP Council's Churchill Gardens management plan notes a rule that holds across Boscombe: a building converted to flats has none of the householder rights under permitted development for a dwellinghouse. So a change to how the roof looks, such as slate to concrete tile, taking a stack down or rooflights on the front slope, is likely to need planning permission even outside a conservation area. A repair in matching materials needs none. On a converted villa, like-for-like is the route with no application to wait on. A re-roof in a new material is a planning job, and one for our roofers in Boscombe.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We are at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe BH7 6HX, and cover BH1, BH5 and BH7, from Churchill Gardens and Knole Road down through the Boscombe Spa streets and across to Pokesdown, with BCP Council as the planning authority. 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.
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Roof repairs near Boscombe
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Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Boscombe
My chimney is not used any more. Is it worth keeping?
Usually, yes. Capping, re-flaunching and new lead stop the leak and keep the roofline. Taking a stack down means rebuilding the roof over the gap, and in flats or a conservation area that can need permission first.
Can you match the old terracotta ridge or the slates next door?
In most cases. Broken ridge pieces and finials are replaced with salvaged ones of the same pattern, and slate is matched for size, thickness and colour from reclaimed stock, so the repair does not show from the street.
How much will my roof repair cost?
We do not publish a figure, because a slate over a bay and a chimney on a three storey villa are different jobs. Access, the covering, the lead and what turns up under the slates decide it. How we price a job explains each line on the quote.
Someone knocked and said my roof needs work. What should I do?
Do not agree anything on the doorstep. Ask to see photographs of the fault, get quotes in writing and keep any deposit small, and check the firm at Companies House. Ours is company number 15471719.
Is a leak after a storm an insurance job?
It can be. Insurers look at whether there was a storm, whether it caused the damage, and whether the roof was already failing: the three questions the Financial Ombudsman asks about a storm claim. Wear that built up over years is usually excluded, as the ombudsman on gradual damage explains. We photograph and write up what we find for your insurer.
Free quote
Tell us where your Boscombe roof is letting water in
Send the street, the floor you are on and what you can see: a stain, a drip on the chimney breast or a slate on the path. We come and look, and put the repair in writing.