Roof repairs in Matchams
Loose ridges and verges, blocked or split valleys, chimney flashings, garage flat roofs and storm damage, repaired across Matchams, among the pines between Avon Heath and Hurn Forest.
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 part that has failed, and only that
Yes, we repair roofs in Matchams: a ridge or verge the wind has loosened, a valley or chimney back gutter letting water in, a split in a garage flat roof, or tiles a south westerly has shifted. We find where the water gets in, mend that spot, and write the price down after a free site visit.
If water is coming through a ceiling in Matchams now, ring 07435 839745 and say which room it is showing in.
Perhaps a verge tile is hanging off the gable after a blow from the south west. Or a wet patch has spread across the landing ceiling, yet from the garden every tile looks where it should be. Or a branch has come down across the garage roof in the night.
Each of those has one fault behind it, and it can be found and shown to you. We look over the slopes from the ground, get up close where a ladder can be set safely, and check the timbers and felt from the loft hatch. You see photographs of what has failed and a written quote for mending it. If the roof as a whole is near the end, you hear that too, with the reasons.
The repairs
What fails first on a Matchams roof, and the repair for each
A leak on a pitched or flat roof comes back to one of a handful of places. Below are the ones to check first, what each repair involves, and roughly how long it takes, so you know what a quote should cover before anyone goes up a ladder.
Ridge, hip and verge. Matchams sits among heath and pine forest with little shelter from the south west, and the elevation that takes the weather faces that way. Gusts get under the end of a ridge or the edge of a verge and work at the mortar bedding until it lets go. One loose ridge tile on sound bedding is lifted, cleaned off and rebedded with a screw or clip through it. When the bedding has cracked along the whole run, pointing over the cracks only hides them until the next gale. That run is stripped and rebedded with every tile fixed, as BS 5534 expects, or turned into a dry ridge and dry verge to BS 8612. Allow about a day for a ridge run.
Valleys and abutments. Lead valleys split along old folds, GRP troughs crack where someone has stood in them, and the mortar along the cut tiles at a valley edge crumbles. Where an extension or dormer meets the main roof, soakers and a step flashing carry the water, and once that flashing pulls out of its joint the stain turns up beside the junction. Re-dressing lifted lead fits inside a day. Relining a split valley means lifting the tiles either side, so allow one to two days.
Chimneys letting water in. A stack has a back gutter on its uphill side, an apron across the front, step flashing down both sides and flaunching round the pots. Any of the four can leak, so we check them all before a tile gets the blame. More on chimney repairs.
Slipped, cracked or missing tiles and slates. If your roof is concrete interlocking tile, one that slides has usually lost its nail or snapped its nib, and it goes back as a matching profile held by a clip. On plain clay tile or slate, the broken one is swapped for a match, a slate held with a tingle. One slipped tile after a south westerly is seldom the only one disturbed, so the courses round it get checked too. Slates sliding all across a slope mean nail sickness, and that slope wants re-nailing.
Moss lifting tile tails. On a shaded slope, moss thickens in the laps and props up the tile above, letting wind drive rain under it. Round a tile being repaired it comes out by hand. Chemical treatment is a separate matter, and moss killers need plant protection product authorisation.
Garage and extension flat roofs. Felt, GRP and EPDM fail at blisters, splits, an upstand pulled away from the wall, and a dip where water ponds short of the outlet. A split over a firm, dry deck is a few hours to patch. If the boards underneath have gone soft, the patch has nothing sound to stick to. See flat roofing in Matchams.
Storm damage and fallen branches. With woodland on both sides of Matchams, a limb landing on a roof in a gale is a real risk. The roof is made weathertight with a temporary sheet first, then we price the permanent repair: tiles, battens, membrane and any rafter that took the blow. Your insurer decides any claim, so read what the insurance industry means by a storm, and see emergency roof repairs for the first hours.
When a repair stops making sense. Tiles flaking across whole slopes, felt at the eaves that crumbles when a tile is lifted, and a new fault every winter say the next repair will not be the last. That is a new covering, and work for our roofers in Matchams.
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 Matchams and nothing in it is listed, so putting back what was there needs no application; the Planning Portal guidance shows where that line sits, and Dorset Council is the authority to ask if a repair ever grows into a change of covering.
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. On a Matchams plot, a single storey eaves reached from a ladder, a two storey gable verge that needs a tower, and a chimney that needs a scaffold round it are three different platforms. 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. Before you ring about a Matchams roof, look from the ground for a verge or ridge tile on the grass, and tell us which side of the house the water is showing on. 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
Clear the valley before anyone quotes for tiles
The houses in Matchams sit right against the pines of Avon Heath Country Park, with Hurn Forest across Matchams Lane to the west. If a pine stands within reach of your roof, what follows applies to you.
What drops from those trees does not stop at the gutter. Needles and cones settle in a valley, in the back gutter behind a chimney, and against the uphill side of a dormer or rooflight. Water backs up behind that ridge of debris, runs sideways over the edge of the valley lead or in behind the soakers, and comes through a ceiling some way from any broken tile.
So before you pay for new tiles, have the valleys and abutments cleared and looked at. The fix may be clearing the channel and re-dressing the lead, or relining a split valley, with no tiles at all. A mortar valley edge that has sat wet under debris cracks sooner, and may need re-bedding or a dry valley trough in its place. A narrow back gutter that silts up every time can be rebuilt wider in lead, which is chimney repairs work. Ask to see photographs of the valley before and after.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Most of Matchams is BH24, in St Leonards and St Ives parish, 5.3 miles from our base in Boscombe. Part of Matchams Lane carries a BH23 Christchurch postcode but is still Dorset Council; only the lane's southern end, in Hurn, is BCP. 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 Matchams
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Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Matchams
My ceiling is wet but the tiles look fine. Where is it coming in?
Usually somewhere the tiles meet something else. A valley packed with debris, the back gutter behind a chimney, a step flashing that has pulled out of the brickwork or the upstand round a rooflight can all let water in with every tile in place. Water then runs down the felt or a rafter before it drips, so the stain can sit well below the cause. Condensation in a poorly ventilated loft can pass for a leak too. More on tracing leaks is on our roof repairs page.
Can one slipped tile be put back, or does the whole slope need doing?
One tile, or a few, can go back on their own if the battens and felt under them are sound. What turns it into a bigger job is finding the nails rusted through across the slope, the battens soft, or the felt crumbling when the tile comes up. Anything beyond the tile gets its own written price first.
Is a branch through the roof a repair or a new roof?
Mostly a repair. The broken tiles, battens and membrane round the hole are replaced, and any rafter that cracked is strengthened or renewed. It only becomes a new roof if the covering around the damage was already failing, and the quote will show you which parts are storm damage and which are wear.
Who is responsible if a roofer is hurt on my roof?
For work on your own home, a domestic client's CDM duties pass to the contractor, so planning the job safely sits with the contractor, not you. The HSE explains how that works in CDM 2015 and domestic clients. Access is set up under work at height rules, which is why a repair can need a tower or scaffold even when the fault itself is small.
What should I get in writing before a roof repair?
An itemised quote naming the fault, where it is, what is being replaced and with what, and how access is handled. Photographs of the fault before and after. By law the work has to be a service performed with reasonable care and skill, and what a trader writes down in a quote is part of the deal. What moves the price is set out in how we price a job.
Free quote
Send us what your Matchams roof is doing
Give us the postcode and what you have spotted, whether that is a stain, a verge tile on the grass or a branch on the garage. We come and look, then write down the repair and its price.