Roof repairs in Fordingbridge
Loose ridges, crumbling verges, split valleys and slipped clay tiles mended across Fordingbridge, with the fault photographed and priced before anything is touched.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Roof repairs
One fault, found and put right
Slipped tiles, loose ridges and verges, split flashings and valleys, leaking chimneys, flat roof splits and storm damage are all repaired across Fordingbridge, from the concrete tile on the estates to the old clay plain tile round High Street and Bridge Street. Thomas comes out free, finds the fault and gives you a written itemised quote for the repair.
Water dripping into the house right now? Ring 07435 839745 and tell us which room it is in and what sits above it.
Maybe a ridge tile has come down onto the drive after a windy night. A patch has spread across the ceiling of the back bedroom, where a kitchen extension meets the house. Or the gable end of your bungalow has left mortar crumbs along the path under the verge.
Each one has a cause you can point at once the roof has been looked at properly. We go up, look in the loft as well, photograph the fault and show you. Then you get a price for mending that fault, and a straight answer on whether the slope around it has years left in it.
What we mend
Estate concrete, bungalow hips and the older roofs by the bridge
Most homes in Fordingbridge went up after the war, and a big share of them in the seventies and early eighties. Those roofs are concrete interlocking tile over bitumen felt, with the ridge, the hips and the verges laid in sand and cement. The faults on them follow from how they were built.
Ridge and hip bedding. Forty-odd years of weather crack the mortar under the ridge until a tile rocks, then lifts in a gale. We take off the loose run, clean the tiles and put them back, either rebedded with a screw or clip through every tile, or on a dry ridge system to BS 8612. On an estate semi, dry fixing is the better repair, because the ridge is held by screws and clips instead of a bed that weathers.
Verges on gable ends. The verge mortar along a gable falls out in lumps and the end tiles work loose. A dry verge kit clips over the tile edge, so there is no mortar left to fall out. Where only a metre or two has gone, we can repoint it to match the rest.
Tiles creeping down the slope. Builders at the time nailed only some courses. Wind lifts the unfixed tiles a fraction each storm until one slides out of its interlock. Replacement tiles go back nailed and clipped, as BS 5534 now asks. A matching profile for an old concrete tile can take some finding, so we send you a photo of it first.
Felt gone at the eaves. The original felt rots where it runs into the gutter, and rain then drips behind the gutter onto the fascia board. We lift the bottom course, fit an eaves carrier tray and a new strip of membrane, and relay the tiles. If the fascia has gone soft, that is fascias, soffits and guttering in Fordingbridge.
Bungalows. The town has plenty, and they are easy to reach from a ladder and a roof ladder. Their hips run down to every corner, so the hip tiles sit close to the gutter, where wind eddies loosen them. On a shallow pitch, wind can also drive rain back up under a short lap, so we check the tile suits the pitch before swapping a broken one.
Where an extension meets the house. A later kitchen, garage or porch joined onto an estate roof leaves a valley or an abutment. Mortared valley tiles crack, a plastic valley trough splits, and a step flashing pulls out of its joint in the brick. We renew the flashing in lead and rebuild the valley.
Flat roofs over garages, porches and flats. Felt blisters and splits, GRP cracks at the trims, and EPDM lifts at an upstand or a blocked outlet. Where a block of flats has a flat roof, water sits in a low spot until it finds a seam. A patch holds only on a deck that is firm underfoot. More on flat roofing in Fordingbridge.
The older houses round the centre. Here the covering is mostly old clay plain tile, with some nineteenth-century buildings in natural slate. Plain tiles slide when their nibs snap, and the mortar torching under old tiles drops out. Slates slip when their nails rust through, and a few go back on lead tingles while a whole slope doing it wants re-nailing. More on the town centre below.
Chimneys. On both kinds of house, a stack leaks through its soakers and stepped flashing, its flaunching, or the back gutter behind it. That work is on our chimney repairs page.
Mend it or re-cover it? A repair makes sense while the battens hold a nail and the tiles are sound. If the felt crumbles when touched across a whole slope, or tiles are loose all over, patching buys a season at most. Then the job belongs with our roofers in Fordingbridge, and how we price a job shows how either option is worked out. For gale damage there is 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.
Putting back a slipped tile or remaking a flashing in the same material is repair, and on an unlisted house it needs no application; Planning Portal guidance on roofs explains when a change does. The town centre is the Fordingbridge Conservation Area and holds most of the town's 49 listed entries, and on a listed building any work that affects its character needs consent, so check with New Forest District Council before we change a detail.
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 Fordingbridge that might be a hip on a bungalow you can reach from the lawn, the verge of a two storey estate semi above a narrow side path, or a Market Place frontage where the eaves hang over the pavement. 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 you live in a flat and the water is coming through your top floor ceiling, tell your managing agent as well as us, because the roof over a block is theirs to instruct. 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.
The old centre
Handmade clay tiles on High Street, Bridge Street and Provost Street
The Fordingbridge Conservation Area covers the town centre, and the listing entries for its buildings describe the same roof again and again: old plain tile, often hipped, with hip-roofed dormers and tile-hung gables. That goes for 15 to 21 and 29 and 31 High Street, 34 and 36 Provost Street, 20 to 24 Bridge Street and The Crown. Slate turns up on a handful of nineteenth-century buildings, such as Avon House and the 1890s Infirmary.
That changes how a repair is done. A broken old plain tile gets replaced with a reclaimed clay plain tile of the same size, colour and curve, hung on its nibs and nailed or hooked, never a machine-made or concrete tile dropped into the gap. Hips and bonnet hips go back in clay. Where lead shows at a chimney, an abutment or a dormer cheek, it is replaced in lead, not a felt or plastic substitute. And the dry ridge kit that suits the estates would change how a front slope looks here, so on those roofs we rebed the ridge in mortar with a mechanical fixing, and ask you before altering anything you can see from the street.
If your building is listed, check the listing before any work, because consent can apply even to a repair. And 59 and 61 Church Street is under thatch. We do not thatch: straw goes to a specialist thatcher, and our part is limited to the tiled roof next door, the lead or the chimney.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Fordingbridge is in SP6, fourteen miles north of our base at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, and we repair roofs all over the town, the centre and the estates alike, and out to Sandleheath, Alderholt and Breamore. The National Park begins east of the town, so planning here sits with New Forest District Council. 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 Fordingbridge
Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Fordingbridge, and the other trades we offer in Fordingbridge itself.
Roof repairs nearby
Our other trades in Fordingbridge
Everything we do in Verwood Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover
Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Fordingbridge
How much does a roof repair cost?
Not a figure we can give before seeing the roof. The price turns on how we reach the fault, what it turns out to be once found, and what the tiles, lead or felt around it are like. After the free visit you get it in writing, line by line.
Before I let a roofer up a ladder, what should I check?
Look the firm up. We are Bournemouth Roofing and Building Ltd, company number 15471719 at Companies House. Expect a written, itemised quote, and ask for photographs of the fault they say they found. Turn away anyone who knocks after a storm offering to fix a roof you had not noticed was damaged.
Is there a best time of year for roof repairs?
Mortar and lead both want dry days above freezing, so late spring to early autumn is kindest. A leak cannot wait for summer, though. It gets a temporary cover to keep water out, and the permanent repair follows in a dry spell.
My flat is in a block. Can I book the roof repair myself?
Usually not. The roof belongs to the freeholder, so the managing agent or freeholder instructs the work, and larger jobs can mean the consultation under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. We can still find the fault and send the photos and quote to whoever pays.
Do you repair thatched roofs?
No. A thatched roof, like the pair at 59 and 61 Church Street, needs a specialist thatcher. If a tiled roof, a chimney or a lead flashing joins the thatch and that is where the water gets in, that part we can repair.
Free quote
Show us the leak in your Fordingbridge house
Send a photo of the stain and the roof above it, or ring 07435 839745. Thomas comes out, finds the fault and writes up the repair, free.