Roof repairs in Stone

Roof repairs near Wimborne

One fault, found and mended

If water is coming through a ceiling now, ring 07435 839745 and say whether the wet patch is under the main roof, the back extension or the chimney breast.

A stain spreads across the ceiling of a lean-to where it meets the cottage wall. A slate lies on the path below a slated rear wing. The chimney breast upstairs goes damp after a wet westerly. Water sits on the flat roof over the back kitchen for days after the rain has stopped. Each has one cause, and that is where the repair goes.

Thatch is a thatcher's trade and we do not do it. We repair what surrounds it: slate and tile on the extensions and wings, flat roofs, lead and brick stacks. Thomas Hannen looks from the ground and the loft, photographs the fault and writes down what it needs.

The repairs

What fails on the slate, tile and lead at Stone

The listed cottages along the Blandford Road and Stone Lane have brick or timber frame walls, brick stacks and, on several, thatch with catslide lean-tos at the back. Stone Park on St Margaret's Hill is a Regency house under slate. Farrs House on Cowgrove Road is part tiled, with stone eaves courses, and part slated. Towards Wimborne there are later houses and bungalows under concrete tile. Each covering fails in its own place.

Slipped and cracked slate. Natural slate outlives the nails that hold it. Once those nails rust through, which is nail sickness, slates slide out one at a time and open the lap below. We refit each one and hold it with a tingle, a strip of lead or copper fixed to the batten and folded up under the slate's tail, or with copper nails where the slates above can be eased up. A few slipped slates is about a morning. Slates sliding all over one slope tell you the nails have failed across it, and that slope wants stripping and re-nailing, which we price as such.

Plain clay tiles on the gabled wings and outbuildings. A plain tile hangs on its batten by two nibs, which perish or snap with age, and frost splits the odd tile. We slide out the broken tile and fit a reclaimed clay tile of the same size and colour, nailed or hooked as BS 5534 expects. On a listed roof we source a weathered match.

Ridge, hip and verge. On the old roofs the ridge sits in mortar, and on a listed cottage that bedding should be lime to BS EN 459-1 on building lime, soft enough to move with the timbers and let the roof dry out. When it washes out the ridge rocks and water runs in beneath it. We rake out, rebed in lime and fix each ridge tile back. On the concrete interlocking tile of the later houses, the sand and cement under the ridge and verge cracks the same way. There a dry fix ridge and verge to BS 8612 on dry fixed ridge and verge systems replaces the mortar and clips every piece down.

Lead at the stacks and against the walls. The brick stacks on these cottages are the likeliest leak on the roof. Stepped flashing works out of its joints, the soakers under the tiles split, the back gutter behind the stack fills with debris, and old cement fillets crack away from the brick. We cut out and renew the lead in short lengths, dress it by hand and repoint the chase. If the flaunching on top has cracked or the pointing on the stack has opened up, that is chimney repairs, because new lead cannot stop water soaking down through the brick.

Valleys and abutments. Where a slated extension or tiled wing joins the house, a valley or abutment carries water off two slopes, so a small split lets in a lot. Relaying a lead valley means lifting the slates or tiles each side and laying new lead on a sound board, a day or two. We will not smear mastic over a split valley.

Flat roofs on the extensions. Stone Park has a flat-roofed extension across its front, and a flat roof over a kitchen or bathroom at the back of a cottage fails the same way. Felt blisters and splits, the upstand pulls away from the wall and water ponds where the deck has sagged. If the deck under a split is still dry and firm, we cut back the torn felt and bond a patch over it. A deck that gives underfoot has soaked up water, so the covering comes off, the boards are renewed and it is re-covered, usually in EPDM or GRP. Beside thatch the method changes, as set out below. More on flat roofing in Stone.

Gutters and the eaves. A cracked gutter joint, a choked downpipe or a rotten fascia can soak a wall and pass for a roof leak. Our page on fascias, soffits and guttering in Stone covers that side of it.

When mending stops paying. Brittle felt that tears wherever a tile is lifted, battens soft enough to push a screwdriver into, and a slope that leaks again after two repairs all point to a new covering. That is whole roof work for our roofers in Stone, and the quote can price both so you can weigh them.

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.

A like for like repair on an unlisted house at Stone needs no planning application, and the Planning Portal guidance on roofs sets out where that line sits. No conservation area covers the hamlet, and the Pamphill conservation area stops short of it. There are 91 listed entries in and around Stone, though, several cottages on the Blandford Road among them, so on a listed cottage a change of material or detail needs Dorset Council's listed building consent before any slate or tile is changed.

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 at Stone, tell us whether the drip is under the thatch, under the slate or tile, or under the flat roof, because that decides whether we or a thatcher should be first up. 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

Where a tiled or slated roof meets thatch

Several of the listed cottages at Stone are thatched, and some mix coverings. Lumsdens, No 624 on the Blandford Road, has a thatched main roof, a rear extension slated where thatch once was, and a projecting wing under a tiled gable. Its neighbours at 621 to 623 have thatched catslides at the back. So a leak can come from the thatch, the slate or tile, or the junction, and the first visit finds which. Wet under the thatch itself is for a thatcher. Wet under the slated or tiled part, the flat roof behind, or where that roof meets a wall or stack is ours.

Two things then change the repair. No flame goes near thatch: flat roof work beside it is done cold, in EPDM or a cold applied liquid with no torch on felt, and lead is dressed by hand. The covering is still designed to BS 6229:2025 on flat roofs; only the way it is laid changes. And on a listed cottage the junction detail and any change of covering fall under the rule that works affecting the character of a listed building need consent. The thatcher and we agree the order of work first, so neither trade disturbs the other's flashing or ridge.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Stone

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

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