Roof repairs in Parkstone

Roof repairs

One slate, one stack, one stain at a time

If water is coming through a ceiling now, ring 07435 839745 and say whether the wet patch is by the chimney breast, under the front gable or on the top floor of a flat.

A slate has slid down the front slope and is resting in the gutter. A damp line has crept across the bedroom ceiling just below where the small front gable joins the main roof. Or you live on the top floor of a converted house or above a shop, and the drip only starts in heavy rain.

Thomas looks from the pavement and the garden, goes up on a roof ladder where that is safe, and checks the loft. You get photographs of the fault and a written price for mending it.

What fails, and how we mend it

Slipped slates, gablet valleys and tired chimneys

A large share of Parkstone is Victorian and Edwardian, and a lot of homes are flats. Around Ashley Cross, the council's appraisal describes steep slate roofs and big brick chimneys, with the main roof falling away from the street and a small gable, a gablet, facing it. There is a real inter-war share as well, mostly hipped tiled semis with bays.

Slates sliding out of line. On a steep slate slope, the slate outlasts the iron nail through its head, and once that nail rusts through the slate drops or slides into the gutter. For one or two, we draw out what is left, slip in a slate of the same size and thickness, and hold its tail with a slate hook or a strap fixed to the batten beneath. On an old Welsh slate roof, a reclaimed slate cut to size sits better than a new one of another colour and thickness. A few slates take a morning. If slates keep dropping from one slope, every nail on it has gone.

Where a gablet meets the main roof. A small gable facing the street, set against a main roof that slopes away, gives you a valley on each side of it and a junction where the two roofs meet. Lead valleys on roofs this old split along old folds or at a stray nail hole, and moss and leaves pile up into a dam that pushes water sideways under the slates. A split valley means lifting the slates either side, laying new code lead on a valley board and refixing the slates. Allow one to two days per valley.

The big stacks. A large brick chimney lets water in from several directions. The flaunching, the mortar collar round the pots, cracks and lets rain into the stack. Stepped flashings work out of the brick joints down the sides, and the soakers under the slates split. We re-dress or renew the lead in the proper code, rebed the flaunching and repoint open joints. On a semi or terrace the stack is often shared with next door, so tell us, because some work to a party structure needs formal notice under the Party Wall Act. For the stack itself, see chimney repairs.

Hips and ridges on the inter-war semis. Those hipped roofs had their ridge and every hip bedded in sand and cement. After the best part of a century, the bedding cracks, a hip tile starts to rock, and a gusty night lifts it off. When the hip iron at the foot rusts away, the whole run can creep down. We rebed with a mechanical fixing in every tile, or strip the mortar and fit a dry ridge and hip system, since BS 5534 now expects them fixed. On a gable end the verge mortar falls out the same way, and a dry verge replaces it. A semi's ridge and hips are about a day.

Concrete tile where slate used to be. The appraisal notes that some original slate here has already been swapped for concrete tile. Where that re-cover went on with no underlay, nothing sits under the tiles to catch water, so a single interlocking tile cracked by a boot or a ladder leaks straight onto a ceiling. We replace it with a tile of the same profile. Daylight between the tiles, seen from the loft, means there is no underlay.

Felt over the rear extension, garage or dormer. Blisters, splits and a puddle that sits for days after rain are the signs. The upstand, where the felt turns up the wall, is the usual leak. On a dry, firm deck, a split can be cut out and patched in a few hours. If the deck flexes underfoot it has soaked up water, and it needs a re-cover in felt, GRP or EPDM. More on flat roofing in Parkstone.

Top-floor flats and the shared gutters. In a converted house, one set of gutters and outlets drains the whole roof. A blocked outlet or a sagging run can put water into the top flat's wall and ceiling without a single slate out of place. We clear and water-test the run before touching the roof. If the gutter or the fascia behind it has rotted, that is fascias, soffits and guttering work.

After a windy night. Look up from the pavement for a slate out of line, a gap on the ridge or lead standing proud of the stack. If water is getting in, the first visit sheets it or makes a temporary refix.

When mending stops paying. Slipped slates across most of a slope, nails that snap between your fingers, soft battens and felt that tears when touched mean the roof is due a re-cover. That is work for our roofers in Parkstone, and we will tell you so at the visit.

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.

Mending slate with slate, or a tile with a matching tile, is maintenance and needs no application, and the Planning Portal guidance on roofs explains where that ends. The streets around Ashley Cross Green are a conservation area, where the council expects original slate and clay to stay, and the council's list of conservation areas if you are unsure about your address. Six buildings in Parkstone are listed, St Peter's Church among them, and if yours is one, check the council's listed building records before a repair changes any material.

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 you are in a flat, tell your managing agent or landlord as well, because the roof above you may not be yours to mend. 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

Flats and leases

Leaking into a flat? Start with whoever owns the roof

A lot of homes in Parkstone are flats: converted Victorian houses, purpose-built blocks, and the flats above the shop parades on Commercial Road, Station Road and Church Road, many three storeys high and built right up to the pavement. If you own a flat on a long lease, the roof, the gutters and the chimneys normally belong to the freeholder, and repairs go through the managing agent and the service charge. If you rent, report it to your landlord, who by law must keep the structure and exterior in repair, gutters included.

So when water comes through a top-floor ceiling, photograph it and tell the agent or landlord in writing that day. You can still ring us to trace the source and make it safe, but the permanent repair usually needs the freeholder's say-so. Where a leaseholder's share of the bill would pass a set amount, the freeholder must first consult everyone under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. For work that cannot wait, the freeholder can ask the tribunal to set that consultation aside. Our photographs and written itemised quote give the agent something concrete to act on and to set against other quotes.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Parkstone

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

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