Roof repairs in Ridge
Leaks, slipped tiles, loose ridges, lead and flat roof patches on houses in Ridge, on the Frome just south east of Wareham.
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 fault found, one fault mended
Yes, we repair roofs in Ridge, the village on the south bank of the Frome just south east of Wareham, BH20. Loose ridge and hip tiles, slipped tiles and slates, leaking lead, choked valleys and split flat roofs are all repairs we price after a free site visit, in writing.
If water is dripping through a ceiling right now, ring 07435 839745 and say which room it is in.
Maybe a ridge tile is lying in the flower bed after a south westerly gale. Maybe a brown ring has spread on the bedroom ceiling below the place where two slopes meet. Or the gutter at one back corner pours over its lip in every downpour, and the brick under it has turned green.
We look at the roof from the garden and the lane, go up on a roof ladder where that is safe, and check the underside from the loft hatch with a torch. You get photographs of the fault and a written quote for mending it, with no new roof slipped in that you never asked about.
The repairs
Tiles, lead and edges: what fails and how we put it right
Most roof leaks start at a joint or an edge, not in the middle of a slope. Below are the faults that let water in on houses in Ridge, how each one shows itself from indoors, and what the repair involves once we are up there.
Ridge and hip tiles. The tiles along the top of a pitched roof, and down any hips, sit on a bed of sand and cement. A slope facing south west over the open heath takes driven rain into hairline cracks in that bed, frost widens them, and the tile starts to rock.
Pointing over the joints hides the crack for a season or two, but if the bed underneath has let go, the tile must come off. We strip the old mortar and either re-bed the tiles in fresh mortar or change the run to a dry ridge system screwed down onto a vented roll. Either way each tile is mechanically fixed, which is what BS 5534 now expects. Your quote says how long the job will take.
Gable verges. At a gable end the edge tiles sit on a strip of mortar. Once it drops out in lumps, wind gets under the verge course and lifts it. A dry verge clips over the edge and screws into the batten ends, so there is no mortar left to fall.
Slipped and cracked tiles or slates. If yours is a slate roof, a slate sliding out of line usually means its nails have rusted through, which roofers call nail sickness. One slate is refixed with a copper tingle or a hook. On a concrete interlocking tile we lift the course above, re-hang or replace the tile and clip it. Clay plain tile is matched for size, colour and camber, from reclaimed stock where the pattern has gone out of production. If your roof is Purbeck stone slate, it is re-hung on new pegs, never pointed or sealed.
Valleys. A valley carries the rain off two slopes at once. On the side of the village that backs onto the heath and the trees, needles and leaf litter can pack a lead or GRP valley until water climbs its edge and runs in under the tiles. We clear it and pour water down it before anything is renewed. A valley of cut tiles bedded in mortar cracks along that bedding and gets re-laid; split lead gets renewed in code rated sheet.
Chimneys. A stack lets water in at the back gutter on its uphill face, the soakers and stepped flashing down its sides, or the flaunching round the pots. Damp beside the chimney breast points to the side flashings; a stain on the ceiling in front of it points to the back gutter. More on chimney repairs.
Flat roofs on extensions, garages and dormers. Felt blisters, splits at the upstand where it turns up the wall, or lifts round the outlet. A patch holds on a deck that is dry and firm underfoot. A deck that gives has taken water, and it needs re-covering. See flat roofing in Ridge.
Gutters and fascias. A gutter that has lost its fall, or pulled away from a rotten fascia board, overflows at one corner and soaks the eaves. That is fascias, soffits and guttering in Ridge, and here it also decides where your roof water ends up, as the section on the ground below explains.
Mend it, or replace it? One fault gets one repair. Nail sickness across a whole slope, underlay that crumbles wherever a tile is lifted, or a slope sagging between the rafters mean the patches will not stop. Then the quote puts the repair next to a new covering and you choose; whole-roof work is on our page for roofers in Ridge. A thatched roof needs a specialist thatcher, as we do not thatch, though a tiled roof or lead that meets it is ours to look at.
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 Ridge itself; Stoborough's and Wareham's both begin roughly 0.9 km away. The village is inside the Dorset National Landscape, but a like-for-like repair needs no planning application for that, and the Planning Portal guidance on roofs shows where the line sits. Only one listed building stands in Ridge, the old narrow-gauge locomotive shed built for the ball clay tramway, and if your own house turns out to be listed, read Dorset Council on listed building consent before a tile is touched.
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 Ridge that could be a single storey extension reached from a roof ladder, a two storey gable taking the south westerly weather, or a garage roof tucked against a side wall with a fence in the way. 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. In Ridge, tell us which side of the house the water shows on and whether a nearby gutter has been spilling. 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.
Where the water goes
Shrinking ground, and the corner where the gutter spills
Ridge stands beside the River Frome on cohesive ground, the kind that shrinks as it dries and swells as it wets. That changes how a leak from an overflowing valley, a sagging gutter or a downpipe that has parted at a joint should be finished.
Rain tipped onto the same patch at the foot of a wall, winter after winter, keeps the ground under that corner of the house wetter than the rest. That is a question for the footings as well as for the stain inside.
So on a Ridge house the repair does not stop at the tile or the joint. We check where each downpipe discharges, re-join it or run it to a gully or drain, and reset the gutter's fall so the corner that spilled stops doing it. Approved Document H sends rainwater to a soakaway only where the ground will take it, and to a watercourse or drain where it will not. Ground that shrinks and swells is no place to guess, so a soakaway here gets a percolation test before anyone relies on it. To see how your own address sits for river or tidal flooding, use the government flood risk service.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Ridge is in BH20 and Arne parish, 11.9 miles from our Boscombe base; Dorset Council plans here. 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 Ridge
Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Ridge, and the other trades we offer in Ridge itself.
Roof repairs nearby
Our other trades in Ridge
Everything we do in Wareham Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover
Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Ridge
How much does it cost to repair a roof ridge?
We put no figure on it before seeing the roof, because the answer turns on things only a visit shows: how many metres of ridge and hip, whether the bedding has failed or only the pointing, whether you go back to mortar or across to a dry ridge system, and whether it is reached from a roof ladder or needs a tower. How we price a job sets out the method, and the free visit ends in an itemised written quote.
Do ridge tiles need pointing?
Pointing only fills the joints between tiles. If the bed underneath is sound, re-pointing is a fair repair. If a tile rocks when pressed, the bedding has gone and pointing over it will crack again, so the tile is lifted and re-bedded with a fixing, or the run is converted to a dry ridge.
What are the ridge, the hips and the verges of a roof?
The ridge is the horizontal line along the very top where two slopes meet, capped with half-round or angled ridge tiles. Hips are the sloping corners on a hipped roof, running down from the ridge to the eaves. Verges are the edges of the roof at a gable end. All three are fixed separately from the main tiles, which is why they fail on their own.
If a roofer falls while working on my house in Ridge, is that on me?
For work on your own home, the duties you would carry as a client pass to the contractor, as HSE explains under CDM 2015 and domestic clients. Planning safe access is the roofer's job. Before you agree to anything, ask how they will get up there, whether that is a roof ladder, a tower or a scaffold, and see that it is written on the quote.
My downpipe empties onto the ground by the wall. Should I worry in Ridge?
Yes, get it looked at. The ground here shrinks and swells, so water dumped at one spot against a wall year after year is a structural concern as well as a damp one. We can re-join the pipe or run it to a proper drain while we are fixing the roof above it.
Free quote
Tell us what your roof in Ridge is doing
Send your postcode and what you have noticed, a tile on the path, a spilling gutter or a mark on the ceiling. Thomas comes out, looks properly and writes down a free itemised price.