Roof repairs in Broadstone
Loose hips and verges on post-war bungalows, flat roof splits, chimney leaks and old plain clay roofs near Ridgeway, traced to the cause and repaired.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Roof repairs
A hip tile on the patio, or a drip in the back bedroom
Yes, we repair roofs in Broadstone: a hip tile off a bungalow, a verge losing its mortar, split felt over the garage, a leaking chimney, or a cracked plain clay tile on an older house off Ridgeway. We find the fault, show you a photograph of it and put the repair in writing, free, before anything is touched.
If water is coming through a ceiling right now, ring 07435 839745 and tell us which room it is in.
A hip tile is lying on the patio after a windy night. A brown ring has turned up on the ceiling of a bedroom, nowhere near anything obvious. Or the flat roof on the garage or the rear extension holds a puddle that never dries, and something drips inside when it pours.
Thomas Hannen comes out, walks round the roof, goes up where a ladder is safe and looks into the loft with a torch. On a bungalow he can usually show you the fault on his phone before he leaves. The written price is for putting that fault right, and if the roof is past patching he says so.
The repairs
The faults on these roofs, one at a time
Broadstone is bungalow country. Most of its houses are post-war, with the busiest building years in the late 1950s and early 1960s: hipped bungalows and chalets under concrete interlocking tiles, with a smaller Victorian and Edwardian core of plain clay tile and slate near the centre. Each is mended its own way.
Hip and ridge tiles working loose. A hipped bungalow has four long hips climbing to a short ridge, and every one of those tiles sits on a bed of sand and cement. Frost cracks the bedding, rain gets in behind it, and one day a tile rocks in the wind. If one or two tiles are loose and the bedding either side still sounds solid when tapped, we lift just those and bed them back with a screw or clip through each one. If it sounds hollow along most of the run, bedding single tiles is money wasted, and we price the whole hip. Either way we follow BS 5534, which expects ridge and hip tiles to be mechanically fixed and not held on by mortar alone.
Verges washing out on chalet bungalows. The mortar under the end tiles of a chalet's gables weathers from the outside in, leaving sand on the sill below and a dark gap under the tiles. We rake out what is loose and repoint it, or fit clip-on dry verge units screwed into the batten ends to BS 8612. The quote says which, and why.
A tile that has slipped. On a concrete tile roof of this age a tile that slides down has usually lost its nail or snapped its nib. We lift the course above, fit a matching tile and hold it with a clip or a fresh nail. If a sixty year old profile cannot be matched, we borrow a sound tile from a slope nobody sees and put the new one there.
Felt rotted at the eaves. Under those concrete tiles sits bitumen felt, and the last few inches where it laps into the gutter are the first to perish. Then water that gets past the tiles runs onto the fascia and the wall plate, and misses the gutter. We lift the bottom courses, cut back the rotten felt, fit an eaves support tray and a strip of breathable membrane dressed into the gutter, and relay the tiles. A soft fascia behind gets its own line on the quote, and our page on fascias, soffits and guttering in Broadstone covers that side.
The big dormer on a chalet. A rear dormer leaks through a split in the felt on top, a lifted edge trim, or a cracked mortar fillet down a cheek. We cut that fillet out and fit lead soakers with a stepped flashing over them, because mortar against timber that moves will just crack again.
Flat roofs on garages, porches and extensions. Blisters in the felt, a split along a lap, an upstand pulled away from the wall and a drip trim lifted by the wind can all be patched while the deck under them is dry and firm. If the deck gives underfoot, or water sits in a hollow days after rain, the boards are wet and a patch will not bond. That is a re-cover, laid to the falls and details in BS 6229, and flat roofing in Broadstone covers felt, GRP and EPDM.
Chimneys as the leak. Plenty of post-war bungalows were built with a brick stack that can leak even when the stain is metres away. The flaunching, the cement collar round the pots, cracks and lets rain into the brickwork. The lead flashing and soakers lift or split, and on some roofs there was never lead at all, only a mortar fillet that has since cracked. A disused stack can let rain straight down the flue. We renew the lead in code rated sheet, re-flaunch the top and fit a vented cap to a dead flue. More on our chimney repairs page.
Valleys and gutters under the pines. An L-shaped bungalow or chalet has a valley where its two roofs meet, carrying water off both. The ridge Broadstone sits on still has a lot of its tree cover, big pines included, and needles pack into valleys and gutter outlets until the water backs up under the tiles. Sometimes clearing them is the whole job. A split lead valley means lifting the tiles either side and relaying it. Trees on the Ridgeway side may be protected, so check with BCP Council before anyone cuts one back.
When to stop repairing. One hip, one verge, one dormer or one patch on a flat roof is a repair. If the hips, verges and felt are all going together and tiles are slipping on more than one slope, the money is better spent on the whole covering. We price both side by side, and re-covering is on our page for roofers in Broadstone.
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.
Putting back a tile, a ridge or a flashing in the same material needs no planning application, and Planning Portal guidance on roofs explain where that line sits. Broadstone has four listed entries, all Grade II, and if your house is one of them even a repair in kind can need consent from BCP Council, so mention it when you ring.
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 Broadstone that runs from a hipped bungalow whose eaves are within reach of a ladder, to a chalet whose rear dormer sits high over the garden, to a steep clay tile roof off Ridgeway with a tall chimney that needs a scaffold. 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 bungalow the loft sits right over the bedrooms, so if the hatch is easy to reach, a torch on the underside of the felt will often show where the water is running, and a tray on the boards under it saves the ceiling. 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
Old clay roofs off Ridgeway and Tudor Road
Most Broadstone roofs sit outside both of its conservation areas. The minority inside, around Ridgeway, Broadstone Park, Tudor Road, Dunyeats Road and Golf Links Road, include the Victorian and Edwardian houses. BCP Council's report on the two areas describes their roofs as mainly plain clay and slate, with large chimneys, turrets, finials and decorative ridge tiles. It sets a presumption in favour of keeping original materials such as clay tile, and asks that anything replaced is like for like.
That changes the repair. A cracked or flaking plain clay tile gets a reclaimed or matching clay tile, held with a tingle or nailed in, and never a concrete stand-in. Decorative ridge tiles and finials are lifted, cleaned and bedded back in mortar with a fixing, not swapped for a plastic dry ridge cap unless BCP has agreed it. A rotten bargeboard is copied in timber. Adding a dormer to a roof slope needs permission here, while mending what is there does not. Not sure your house is inside a boundary? Check the council's list of conservation areas, and we check the address too before ordering anything.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
From Boscombe it is 7.3 miles up to Broadstone, and our repairs cover all of BH18, from Dunyeats and Corfe Hills to the roads round Broadstone Park and the Broadway. 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 Broadstone
Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Broadstone, and the other trades we offer in Broadstone itself.
Roof repairs nearby
Our other trades in Broadstone
Everything we do in Broadstone Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover
Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Broadstone
Can one or two tiles be replaced on a bungalow without scaffolding?
Usually, yes. Bungalow eaves are low, so a ladder and a roof ladder hooked over the ridge reach most tiles safely. A tile high on a chalet's rear slope can still need a tower, and we say which at the visit.
Is an old clay tile roof near Ridgeway worth repairing, or should it be re-roofed?
Plain clay tiles tend to outlast the nails and battens that hold them. If most are sound, re-fixing the loose ones keeps the original roof. If tiles are flaking across whole slopes, re-covering in salvaged and matching clay is the honest answer, and we price both.
How can I tell whether a flat roof can be patched?
A firm deck with one blister or split takes a patch. A ceiling below with a tide mark spreading out from one spot, a musty smell in the garage, or boards that sag between the joists mean the deck is wet, and a patch will not stay stuck to it.
How do I tell a good roofer from a dodgy one?
Ask for a limited company you can look up: ours is 15471719 at Companies House. Ask for a written quote that names the fault and lists each item, and for photographs of what was found on your own roof. Be wary of a knock at the door after a storm or cash asked for up front. How we price a job shows what ours contains.
Free quote
Tell us what you can see on your Broadstone roof
Send the address and a photo if you have one. Thomas will come out, find the fault and put the repair in writing.