Roof repairs in Langton Matravers
Slipped Purbeck stone slates, leaks at stacks and parapet gables, natural slate and the flat roof behind the parapet, repaired across Langton Matravers.
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 stone, one stack, one leak at a time
Yes, we repair roofs across Langton Matravers, from a single Purbeck stone slate that has slid out of its course to a leaking stack, a parapet gable or the flat roof tucked behind it. We trace where the water gets past, mend that point, and write the price down after a free site visit.
If water is coming in right now, ring 07435 839745 and tell us whether the roof above the drip is stone, slate or tile.
A stone has crept a hand's width down the slope and you can see a dark slot above it. A damp patch is spreading on the bedroom wall beside the chimney breast after a wet westerly. Or water is dripping into the back kitchen where a flat roof meets the stone parapet.
We look at the slopes from the lane and the garden, then at the underside of the stones from the loft with a torch. You get photographs and a written quote for the fault. If the fault is the whole slope, we say so, with the pictures to show why.
The repairs
Stone slate, natural slate and the lean-to at the back
Along the High Street the older cottages are rubble stone under Purbeck stone slate, with stacks on the ridge or gable ends and small pent roofed dormers. The later nineteenth century buildings carry natural slate, several of them hipped. Behind some sit a lean-to under concrete tile, a porch under corrugated sheet, or a flat roof behind a stone parapet. Each fails in its own spot.
A stone slate that has slipped. Each stone hangs from one peg or nail through a hole near its head, over a timber lath. When the peg rots, the nail rusts through or the lath goes soft, the stone slides down and opens the gap it was covering. The courses get shorter towards the ridge, so a replacement has to be the length of the course it left. We lift the stones above and fix the slipped one back on a new copper or stainless nail into sound lath. Stone cracks under a boot, so we work from roof ladders and boards. A few stones is about a day.
Torching that has dropped out. An old stone roof has no felt under it. The underside of the courses was pointed in lime, which is called torching, to stop wind lifting rain up between the stones. From the loft you may see it lying in crumbs on the insulation. A small area can be re-torched in lime from inside. Torching gone across a whole slope, with loose stones above it, is a different conversation.
Ridges and verges on stone. Ridge pieces are bedded in mortar, and one listed High Street building has red clay ridge tiles over its stone slate. Once the bedding cracks, a ridge piece rocks and water runs in along the joint. We lift, clean and rebed each piece in lime mortar, which moves with the stone. On the south west slope the verge and the ridge end catch the driven rain first, so those get checked before anything else.
Stacks on the ridge and at the gables. A stain near the chimney breast sends us straight to the stack. Where stone meets chimney there should be soakers under the stones, stepped lead up each side, an apron across the front and a back gutter behind. Some older roofs have a mortar fillet instead of lead, and it cracks away from the stack and lets water run down the brickwork inside. We cut out the fillet and dress in new lead, wedged into a raked joint. One stack is about a day. If the top of the stack is crumbling too, that is part of our chimney repairs, and lead alone will not cure it.
Parapet and coped gables. Where the gable wall rises above the roof and is capped with stone copings, water gets in two ways. It seeps through the joints between the copings as the mortar fails, and it runs down the line where the slope meets the inside face of the parapet. We repoint or rebed the copings and replace a failed fillet with a lead flashing chased into the stone.
Pent dormers in the attic. A dormer set into a stone slope leaks at its cheeks, the two sides, and at the lead apron under the window. New soakers or lead cheeks and a fresh apron mean lifting the stones round the dormer, so allow a day or two.
Natural slate. On the hipped slate roofs, iron nails rust and slates drop one at a time, which is nail sickness. A few slipped slates get a tingle, a strip of copper or lead hooked under the tail. Slates going all over one slope mean that slope wants stripping and re-nailing. Lead hip rolls get re-dressed and mortared hips rebedded.
The lean-to and the flat roof. A single storey lean-to under concrete interlocking tile leaks where it meets the stone wall behind, at a cracked or broken tile, or at a verge that has lost its mortar and then a missing tile. We renew the flashing and fit a dry verge to BS 8612. A flat roofed extension behind a parapet, in felt, GRP or EPDM rubber, fails at the upstand and at the outlet through the wall more than at a blister or split in the middle of the deck. We clear and re-form the outlet and renew the upstand. A deck that gives underfoot will not hold a patch, see flat roofing in Langton Matravers.
Corrugated sheet on a porch or back extension. On an older building this may be asbestos cement. Nobody should walk on it, drill it or break it. We work round it from boards and ladders that never bear on the sheet, and replacing it is a separate, planned job.
Gutters. This close to the sea, iron gutter brackets rust through before the gutter does, so a gutter that sags at one bracket is worth a look under fascias, soffits and guttering.
Repair or replace. Stones slipping all across a slope, pegs rotten wherever a stone is lifted, and laths that snap in your hand mean there is little life left in the fixings, and the next patch will not be the last. That slope wants stripping and relaying, a re-roof in the same stone, which is work for our roofers in Langton Matravers.
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.
On an unlisted house in Langton Matravers, putting back the same stone or slate needs no application, and the Planning Portal guidance on roofs explains where that line sits. There are 50 listed entries in the parish, so check whether yours is one, because on a listed building Dorset Council's page on listed building consent applies to repairs too.
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 Langton Matravers that can be a stone cottage fronting the High Street, where a tower on the pavement needs a highway licence under section 169 of the Highways Act, a hipped slate roof set back behind a garden wall, or a lean-to at the back reached only through the house. 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 a stone slate has come down, keep it, even in pieces, and do not climb up to push the gap closed. 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
Patch stone with stone inside the conservation areas
Most of the old village sits inside Langton Matravers Conservation Areas 1 and 2, which Dorset Council drew in two parts, so check your own address on the council's map. Inside them, putting back the same covering is maintenance. Patching a stone slate roof with concrete tiles, clay plain tiles, artificial stone slates or a fibre cement slate changes how the roof looks, and that is the kind of change the council controls. On a listed cottage, even a like for like repair can need consent, so ask before a single stone is swapped.
What that means for your repair is simple. Keep every fallen stone, and any sound stone that comes off while we work, because a second hand Purbeck stone slate of the right length is the part that sets the timetable. The run along the High Street, the King's Arms Inn and Forge Cottage among them, is stone slate on stone walls, and one grey tile in a slope like that shows from the road for the rest of the roof's life. If anyone offers to tidy up a stone slope by covering it in something else, ask whether they have spoken to the council first.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Langton Matravers, from the High Street to Durnford Drove and the lanes out towards Acton, all BH19, is covered from our base in Boscombe, and Dorset Council is 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.
Nearby, and next door
Roof repairs near Langton Matravers
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Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Langton Matravers
A stone slate has slid down. Can it go back?
If it has not broken, yes. The fixing failed, not the stone, so it goes back on a new nail. If it cracked on the way down, we find a reclaimed stone the same length for that course.
The parapet gable leaks after heavy rain. Where is it getting in?
Either through the joints between the coping stones on top, or along the line where the roof meets the inside face of the parapet. Damp high on the gable wall inside points to the copings. A ceiling stain a little way in from the wall points to the flashing. We check both from above before pricing.
My back extension has an asbestos roof. Can you repair round it?
Where the leak is at the flashing between the sheet and the main wall, the lead can often be renewed without touching the sheet. We will not walk on, cut or drill corrugated asbestos cement. If the sheet is cracked or has to come off, that is a separate job, planned and priced on its own.
A storm has taken stones off. What do I do first?
Pick up what has fallen and keep it, and photograph the roof from the ground and any wet ceiling inside, which your insurance will ask for. Then ring. On the first visit, stones that are whole go back where they will hold, and a temporary sheet is battened over any gap that cannot be closed that day.
Is it a repair or a strip and relay?
A repair, when the fault is in one place: a few stones, one flashing, a length of ridge. A strip and relay, when stones are slipping across a whole slope and lifting one shows laths that crumble. You see our photographs from the roof and the loft, and where it is close the quote prices both.
Free quote
Get a Langton Matravers roof fault looked at
Tell us the covering, where the water shows and your postcode. The site visit is free and the quote comes in writing, item by item.