Roof repairs in Lytchett Matravers
Slipped interlocking tiles, loose hips, perished flashings and felt, garage flat roofs, and the slate and stacks on the older cottages, repaired across Lytchett 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
A leak in the village, traced to where it starts
Yes, we repair roofs in Lytchett Matravers: a slipped interlocking tile on a seventies bungalow, a hip that has worked loose, a flashing that has let go where an extension meets the house, or the slate on one of the older houses off the High Street. You get a free site visit, the fault photographed, and a written, itemised quote to mend it.
If water is getting in as you read this, ring 07435 839745 and say which part of the house it is showing in.
The bottom hip tile on the bungalow has shifted and there is mortar grit on the path. A damp patch has appeared on the extension ceiling, right against the house wall. The garage roof holds a puddle for days. Or a drip starts by the loft window after a night of wind and rain.
We look from the ground, go up on a roof ladder where it is safe, and check the underside from the loft with a torch. You see the photographs before you agree to anything, and if mending the roof no longer makes sense, you hear that too.
The repairs
Seventies tile, cottage slate, and the leaks each one gets
Most of Lytchett Matravers went up in the seventies and early eighties, with more added through to the 2000s: a lot of bungalows and detached houses under large-format concrete interlocking tile on trussed rafters, with bitumen felt beneath. Around the High Street is a smaller core of brick, ironstone and plastered cottages under clay plain tile or natural slate.
Slipped or cracked interlocking tiles. An interlocking tile is single-lap: it keeps rain out through its side lock and a short overlap, so a tile that drops even a little leaves an open joint. When these roofs were laid only some courses were nailed, and a loose tile hangs on its nibs until wind walks it down the slope. We ease up the tiles above, fit one of the same profile and clip or nail it, because BS 5534 now wants every tile mechanically fixed. Refixing a handful of tiles from a roof ladder takes around a morning.
Hips and ridges. On a hipped bungalow the hips run right down to the eaves, within reach of a roof ladder. The hip tiles sit on sand and cement, and after forty-odd winters the bedding cracks, the hip iron rusts and the end tile rocks. We rebed the run with a screw or clip through every tile, or strip the mortar and fit a dry ridge and hip system to BS 8612, which leaves no mortar to fall out. Allow about a day for a ridge and its hips. On a gabled house, verge tiles that have lost their mortar get screwed dry verge units instead.
A wet fascia with a dry loft. The felt under these roofs dresses over the fascia into the gutter, and that strip perishes first. Once it tears, rain runs behind the gutter and down the fascia board while the loft stays dry. We lift the bottom courses, cut back the torn felt, fit an eaves carrier tray and lap new membrane over it. A soft board is replaced on the same visit, as fascias, soffits and guttering work.
Valleys and abutments on extended houses. An extension turns a house into an L, with a valley where two roofs meet and an abutment where a lean-to or porch meets a two storey wall. Bedded valley tiles crack loose, and lead or GRP troughs silt up with moss and split. At an abutment, step flashing tucked into the brickwork and a lead soaker under each tile carry the water, and when the lead pulls out of its joint the stain shows on the extension ceiling beside the wall. Re-dressing or renewing a flashing is about a day. Relaying a valley means lifting the tiles along both sides of it, so give that one to two days.
Rooflights and loft windows. Windows set into these roofs later sit in a flashing kit, with an apron below, side soakers and a gutter above. The seals perish and the cut tiles beside it drop, so we check the kit first.
Flat roofs on garages, porches and extensions. Felt, GRP and EPDM rubber all fail at the same points: a blister that cracks, a split upstand against the house wall, and an outlet choked with leaves. A patch holds on a dry, firm deck. A deck that flexes underfoot has taken in water and nothing will bond to it. There is more on flat roofing in Lytchett Matravers.
Storm damage. A lifted ridge or a tile gone after a gale is refixed or sheeted to make it weathertight, then the permanent repair is priced in writing.
The older houses. Slate slips when its nails rust through, which is called nail sickness. A few slipped slates are held with tingles, strips of lead or copper hooked under the bottom edge, but slates sliding all over a slope mean stripping and re-nailing it. A cracked clay plain tile is swapped for a reclaimed one matched for colour and camber. Some older roofs have stone eaves courses, as Hopman's Farm House on the High Street does, and those stones are lifted and reset, never replaced with concrete. On these houses the chimney is the likeliest leak: cracked flaunching, open joints, and the lead flashing and back gutter behind the stack. See chimney repairs.
When a repair stops paying. Tiles cracking across a slope, felt that crumbles when a tile is lifted, and battens a screwdriver sinks into all say the next repair will not be the last. That is a re-cover, and it goes to our roofers in Lytchett 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.
Lytchett Matravers has no conservation area, so mending an ordinary house like for like needs no planning application, and the Planning Portal guidance shows where that line falls. If your house is listed, read Dorset Council's page on listed building consent before a covering, a flashing or a stack is changed.
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 Lytchett Matravers that might be a hipped bungalow where the hips come down within reach of a roof ladder, a two storey seventies detached with a valley over the garage extension, or an older cottage with its stack sitting on the ridge. 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. When you ring about a roof in Lytchett Matravers, tell us if it is tile, slate or a flat roof and which room the water is in. 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.
Thatched cottages
Next door to the thatch: the lean-to and the stack
Most of the listed houses in the parish are thatched, several in the village itself on Limekiln Road, Prospect Road and Wareham Road. We do not thatch, so water through the thatch is a job for a specialist thatcher.
What a roofer can repair is everything around it: the single-storey lean-to under slate, tile or shingles, the brick stacks, and later flat-roofed garages and extensions. Leaks start where the lean-to meets the cottage wall and around the stack.
Three things change the repair. Many have plastered or cob walls, so a flashing cannot always be cut into a mortar joint and the detail must suit the wall; a hard cement fillet on a soft old wall cracks away, as Historic Environment Scotland on lime and cement in traditional mortars explains. Nothing with a flame goes near thatch, so a roof against it gets a cold-applied or mechanically fixed repair, never torch-on felt. And on a listed cottage the lean-to and the stack are part of the listed building, and works affecting the character of a listed building need consent, so slate stays slate and lead stays lead. If your extension adjoins a thatched neighbour, the no-flame rule applies to your roof too.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover the whole of Lytchett Matravers in BH16, from the High Street and Wareham Road out to Limekiln Road and Colehill Road. It is just under eleven miles 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 Lytchett Matravers
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Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Lytchett Matravers
How much should a roof repair cost?
We do not price a repair nobody has looked at. It depends on how the fault is reached, what comes off to get at it, and whether the felt and battens beneath are sound. How we price a job sets out each of those, and the written quote lists them line by line.
How do I tell a roofer I can rely on from a cowboy?
Ask to see the fault. A good roofer photographs it, says what caused it and itemises the repair in writing. Be wary of a knock on the door about a roof nobody has been on. You can check us on Companies House under company number 15471719.
Our cottage is thatched and the lean-to leaks. Who do we call?
Us for the lean-to, the stack and the flashing where a tiled, slate or flat roof meets the wall. A specialist thatcher for the thatch. If you cannot tell which is leaking, we check the parts we repair and tell you if they are sound.
It only leaks when the rain blows sideways. What does that mean?
Water is being driven in at a joint: a tile lock, a short lap, a flashing or a roof window kit. A cracked tile leaks in any rain. Note the wind direction and tell us, since that points to the slope to check first.
Is it worth patching the flat roof on our garage?
Yes, if the deck is firm and the damage is one split, blister or upstand. No, if the deck is soft or the covering is already a quilt of old patches. Then a new covering on a sound deck is the better spend, and the quote can price both.
Free quote
Send us the fault and we will come and look
Give us your address in the village and what you have seen: a tile out of line, a stain by the wall, water in the garage. The visit and the written quote are free.