Roof repairs in Iwerne Minster
Slipped plain tiles, loose half-hips, stone-slate margins and leaking stacks mended in Iwerne Minster, with material that matches what came off.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Roof repairs
Mending the one part of the roof that has failed
Yes, we repair roofs in Iwerne Minster: slipped plain tiles and slates, loose half-hip and ridge tiles, stone-slate margins where a roof has them, chimney and valley leaks, and split flat roofs over extensions. We find the point where the water gets in, mend that, and set the work out in a free written itemised quote after a free site visit.
If water is coming in now, ring 07435 839745 and say which room it shows in and whether that part of the house is tiled, slated or thatched.
A repair usually starts with one thing you notice. A tile has dropped off the end of a half-hip and broken on the path by the back door. A brown mark has spread across the ceiling beside a chimney breast after a wet week. A slate on a low cottage roof has slid a few inches out of its course. The felt over the extension drips onto the worktop.
We look from the garden and from the loft, go up where it is safe, and photograph the fault. If one tile will do, the quote says one tile.
What we mend
Half-hips, slate pairs and flat-roofed extensions: what we mend
Start with what your roof is covered in. Clay plain tile, natural slate, stone slate, concrete tile and felt each fail in their own way, and the repair follows the material. If the roof is thatch, that part is for a thatcher.
Plain tiles and the half-hip. A clay plain tile hangs by two nibs on a batten. On an old roof the nails rust and the nibs snap, and the tile slides down onto the one below. One or two are refitted on a tile hook, or a matched reclaimed tile is slipped into the space. If your house has a half-hip, the small sloping triangle at the top of a gable, look there first. Its hip tiles sit on mortar, held at the foot by a hip iron, with a bonnet tile at each corner. When the iron rusts or the bedding washes out, the whole line creeps downhill. We lift the run, clean it, re-bed it and fix each tile mechanically, as BS 5534 expects.
Shallow-pitched slate. If your cottage has natural slate at a low pitch, the low slope gives wind-blown rain less fall to run off, so a slipped or cracked slate lets water creep back under the lap sooner than it would on a steep roof. A slipped slate goes back on a tingle, a strip of lead or copper nailed through the gap and turned up under its tail. Where slates are slipping along the whole slope, the nails have failed together, and tingles only buy time.
Ridges bedded in mortar. Once the bedding cracks, wind rocks the ridge tiles loose, so the ridge comes off, every whole tile is kept, and it goes back on fresh bedding with a fixing through each one.
Chimney stacks. On a tall brick stack, perhaps with clustered flues under a stone cap, water gets in at four places: the top of the stack, a split cap stone, the back gutter where the slope drains against the stack, and the soakers and flashing down its sides. A stain on the chimney breast upstairs traces to one of those, so we check all four before pricing. Work on the brickwork itself is chimney repairs.
Valleys and back gutters. Where a tree hangs over the roof, leaves pack into lead valleys and water backs up over the edge of the lead. A split valley is relined in new lead, lifting the tiles either side, and never painted over with mastic.
Tiled porches on thatched cottages. If your thatched cottage has a small tiled porch or lean-to built against the thatch, a leak there is usually at the join, where a lead flashing or mortar fillet has cracked. We repair the tile and lead side. We are not thatchers, so the thatch above that porch is a job for a specialist thatcher.
Flat roofs over extensions and garages. Felt, EPDM rubber and GRP fibreglass all give way in the same spots: the upstand against the house wall, the outlet, and split seams or blisters. On a dry, firm deck a split is patched and the upstand re-dressed in a few hours. A deck that flexes underfoot will not hold a patch, and the covering then wants renewing to BS 6229. More on flat roofing in Iwerne Minster.
Concrete tile on a later bungalow. Here it is usually the ridge mortar or the perished felt at the eaves, and if the felt under the whole slope is brittle, talk to our roofers in Iwerne Minster about a re-roof.
Gutters and gales. An overflowing gutter can pass for a roof leak inside, and a rotten board behind it is fascias, soffits and guttering work. After a gale, we sheet any gap until matching tile or slate is found.
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.
A like-for-like repair to an unlisted house sits inside the Planning Portal guidance on roofs. On a listed house in the parish, a repair that disturbs old fabric can still need listed building consent from Dorset Council, so check whether yours is on the list before the work is booked.
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 Iwerne Minster that could be a bungalow eaves reached from a ladder, a felt roof over a rear kitchen extension, or a tall brick stack on a cottage that stands close to the road. 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 the drip is under a tiled porch that meets a thatched roof, say so when you ring, so a thatcher can look at the thatch while we deal with the tiles and lead. 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.
Matching the detail
The details a patch repair here has to match
Iwerne Minster has its own conservation area, with about 40 listed buildings within a kilometre of the village centre. Oak House, designed by Baillie Scott and built for James Ismay in 1923, has a tiled roof with stone-slate margins, a few courses of stone slate at the eaves under the tile. Where your roof has that detail, or ornamental ridge tiles, or decorated bargeboards, a patch repair has to keep it.
Inside the conservation area, putting back what came off counts as maintenance. Swapping a detail for a stock part is a change. So if a stone slate slides off your eaves, it goes back in stone slate from reclaim, never filled with plain tile. If an ornamental ridge lifts, it comes off whole and is re-bedded, not replaced with a plain half-round or a dry-ridge kit. Keep any broken piece, because it is the pattern we match. Photograph the detail before work starts. If anything visibly different is going back, ask the council first.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Iwerne Minster, in DT11, is covered from our base in Boscombe, as are Stourpaine and Blandford Forum to the south. 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 Iwerne Minster
Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Iwerne Minster, and the other trades we offer in Iwerne Minster itself.
Roof repairs nearby
Our other trades in Iwerne Minster
Everything we do in Blandford Forum Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover
Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Iwerne Minster
Can you repair a roof while it is raining?
A temporary make-safe, such as a sheet battened over the gap, can go on in poor weather if it is safe. The permanent repair waits for a dry spell, because fresh mortar, dressed lead and a flat roof bond all need one. Read HSE on not going on a roof in poor weather: wind and wet decide whether anyone should climb at all.
A stone slate has slid off the bottom of my tiled roof. Can you put it back?
Yes. If it came down whole, it goes back in the same place on a new fixing, since the pegs that hold stone-slate margins rot in time. If it broke, keep the pieces and we match the size and thickness from reclaim. Filling the gap with plain tile would change the look of the eaves, and in the conservation area that stops being a like-for-like repair.
Our ornamental ridge tiles are lifting. Do they have to be replaced?
Not if they come off in one piece. They come off whole, the old bedding is cleaned away, and they go back on fresh mortar with a fixing to each one. Only a cracked one is replaced, and a matching pattern takes finding, so keep any broken piece to match against.
When is a repair no longer worth doing?
When the fault is the whole slope and not one spot: plain tiles sliding all over because the nails have gone, felt that tears wherever it is touched, or the same slope patched again with the leak moving each time. Then the quote sets the repair and a re-cover side by side, and the re-cover is work for our roofers in Iwerne Minster.
What decides the cost of fixing a flat roof over an extension?
Whether the deck is dry and firm, how much of the upstand has failed, which covering it is, and how the roof is reached. A sound deck with one split is a patch. A soft deck means a new covering. More on flat roofing in Iwerne Minster and how we price a job.
Free quote
Tell us which part of your Iwerne Minster roof is leaking
Send the address and what you have noticed: a tile off a half-hip, a slate out of line, a stain beside the stack. We come and look, and the repair goes in writing.