Roof repairs in Longham

Longham, BH22

One fault, one repair, one written price

If rain is coming into a room in Longham right now, ring 07435 839745 and say which ceiling it is coming through.

Three signs are worth a call on a Longham roof. A scatter of mortar crumbs on the drive below a hip, with one hip tile sitting out of line. A brown mark spreading from the inside corner of a bungalow ceiling, where the back extension joins the house. A drip by the kitchen door, under the flat roof of the extension or the garage.

None of those means the whole roof has had it. Thomas goes up, then into the loft with a torch, photographs the fault and prices the fix for it, item by item. If the covering has worn out, you hear that too, with photographs.

The repairs

What goes wrong on a Longham hipped roof, and the fix for each

Much of Longham was built between the late fifties and the seventies, and a roof of that age is typically concrete interlocking tile at a fairly low pitch, often hipped on the bungalows, with hip and ridge tiles bedded in sand and cement and bitumen felt draped over the rafters with no boards beneath it. A few houses along Ringwood Road are a good deal older than that.

Hip and ridge bedding. On a hipped bungalow the hips are the longest mortar joints on the house, and after half a century the bed has shrunk and cracked, so a hip tile rocks or creeps down the run. If only a few have loosened and the mortar under the rest is still hard, we lift those few, rebed them and put a screw or clip through each, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 now asks for. If the mortar crumbles all along the hip, rebedding only resets the clock, so we strip it and fit a dry hip system to BS 8612, with nothing left to wash out.

Verges on gables. On a gable end, or a gabled garage beside a hipped bungalow, the end tiles sit on a bead of mortar over a strip of undercloak. Driven rain washes that mortar out and the wind gets under the edge. We repoint over a sound undercloak, or fit a clipped dry verge where it has perished.

Slipped and cracked tiles. Interlocking tiles of this age were nailed on some courses only, and the nails and clips rust through while the tile itself carries on. So a tile slides out of its lock in a gale, or a corner cracks. We ease up the tile above, slide in one of the same profile and clip it down.

Valleys. An L-shaped bungalow, or a house whose later extension roof runs into the main slope, has a valley at the inside corner. It drains two slopes at once, so split lead or cracked mortar under old valley tiles lets in a lot of water, and the stain shows at that corner of the ceiling. Sometimes clearing the leaves and running a hose down it is the whole answer. Otherwise we lift the tiles along both sides and relay it in lead or a GRP valley trough.

Lead at stacks and walls. On a brick stack, the apron, the stepped flashing and soakers, the back gutter and the cement flaunching can each put water down the chimney breast, so all four get checked before anyone blames a tile. The same stepped lead runs where a two storey house meets a single storey addition. Lead that has pulled out of its joint is dressed back, wedged and repointed, never covered in sealant.

Felt at the eaves. The original felt on these roofs does not breathe, and at the eaves, where it laps into the gutter, it turns brittle and rots away. Rain past a slipped tile then runs down the felt into the fascia. The lowest courses come up, the felt is cut back to sound, and an eaves carrier tray is dressed into the gutter. If the felt splits wherever it is touched, that is a re-cover and a job for our roofers in Longham.

Flat roofs on garages and extensions. Felt, GRP and EPDM give up at the upstand against the tiles or wall, at the outlet, and in blisters. On a dry, firm deck a split is cut out and patched. A deck that gives underfoot needs a new covering, set out on our flat roofing in Longham page.

Gutters that pass for leaks. A gutter spilling over the back wall of a wide, low roof can leave a damp patch indoors that looks exactly like a roof fault. We check the gutter first, and our fascias, soffits and guttering in Longham page covers that side.

Natural slate on an older house. If your roof is slate, a slate that slips once its nail rusts is held back with a copper tingle or a slate hook, and a replacement is matched against the A, T and S codes for natural slate. A thatched roof is work for a specialist thatcher, not us, though we can look at the chimney lead or a tiled roof that joins it.

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.

No conservation area covers Longham, so refitting a matching tile, rebedding a hip or renewing lead on an unlisted house needs no application, as the Planning Portal guidance on roofs sets out. Thirteen listed entries sit in and around the village, Longham United Reformed Church among them, and changing the roof material on any of those needs listed building consent from Dorset Council.

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. After a gale, look on the lawn and drive for fallen hip tiles or mortar, and keep people and cars clear of that corner until the roof is checked. 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.

Call now: 07435 839745

Worth knowing

Low hipped roofs: tracing the drip, and mending it without a full scaffold

More than a third of homes in Longham are bungalows. On a single storey hipped roof the water gets in at three places. The long hip runs lose their bedding. A valley forms wherever an L-shaped plan or a later extension meets the main roof.

And the flat roof of a garage or rear extension runs into the slope at an abutment that depends on lead and a sound upstand. If your bungalow has a dormer, add its cheeks and flat top. With no rooms upstairs the loft is one open space, so the stain is easier to trace back, and a torch along the rafters usually finds the fault.

That changes the job. With eaves at single storey height, a slipped tile, a hip or ridge that needs rebedding or dry fixing, a verge or a valley can usually be reached from a tower or with a roof ladder, inside the HSE rules on roofwork. So a fault in one spot should be priced as one repair, with a tower on the access line, not folded into a quote to scaffold the house and strip a slope. The honest exception is when lifting a few tiles shows felt falling apart and battens gone soft across the slope. Then patching stops paying, and a re-cover is the right job, which our page for roofers in Longham covers.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Longham

Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Longham, and the other trades we offer in Longham itself.

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