Roof repairs in Swanage

Roof repairs

Mend the one thing that is letting the rain in

If water is already coming through a ceiling, ring 07435 839745 and tell us the street and the room it is dripping into.

A south westerly has gone through and there is a lump of ridge mortar on the front step. A grey stone has slid down onto the gutter of a cottage in the old town. A brown patch has appeared on the top floor ceiling of a converted guest house, right under the valley between two bays. Or the felt over the back addition has opened up where it meets the wall.

Each has one place where the water gets in. We look from the street and the garden, go up where a roof ladder is safe, and check the underside from the roof space. You see photographs of what we found, and the quote describes the repair in writing. If the roof as a whole has had its day, we tell you and show you why.

The repairs

Stone, slate, tile and felt: where each one fails in Swanage

The oldest cottages in the old town carry Purbeck stone slate, the Victorian terraces, villas and former guest houses Welsh slate, and the post-war houses and Herston bungalows concrete interlocking tile, with clay plain tile in between. Each fails in its own spot.

A Purbeck stone that has slipped. Every stone hangs on a peg or a nail near its head. When that fixing rots or rusts through, the stone slides down and leaves an open slot above it. A single stone like that is re-hung, or swapped for a matched stone cut to the length of its course. If stones are creeping down all across a slope, the fixings have died along the whole of it, and paying for one stone at a time is money wasted. That slope wants stripping, sorting and relaying, which is re-roof work for our roofers in Swanage.

An old repair that is now the problem. A stone roof that someone has pointed or coated with sealant can no longer drain at the laps, so water sits against the stone and its fixings. That old repair has to be cut out before the real one can be done. Moss on stone is not a fault on its own, and we do not pressure wash stone.

Welsh slate on the terraces and villas. The slate lasts far longer than the iron nails that hold it. A slate that has dropped an inch or cracked across is taken out and a slate of the same size goes in, held by a tingle, a strip of lead or copper hooked under its tail. Slates dropping all over one slope is nail sickness, and that slope needs stripping and re-nailing. On a Victorian roof, reclaimed Welsh slate is the match that disappears among the old ones.

Red brick stacks on stone terraces. Where a stone terrace has a soft red brick chimney, the stack lets water in three ways: loose lead flashings and soakers, cracked flaunching on top, and rain soaking through the brick. We re-dress or renew the lead. If the brick or the flaunching has failed, that is chimney repairs, and new lead alone will not stop it.

Valleys, box gutters and parapets. A villa with bays and hips has valleys, and a three storey terrace can hide a box or parapet gutter behind its frontage. Each takes the water off two slopes and each fills with leaves and slate grit, so a split in the lead lining lets it straight into the top floor. We clear it and relay the lead in lengths short enough to move in the heat, lifting the slates either side to do it. The length of the run sets how long that takes, and the written quote says so. On a parapet gutter hidden behind a terrace frontage, a smear of mastic over the split only hides the leak until the top floor ceiling stains again.

Clay plain tile. Cracked or flaking tiles are slid out and matched, hooked where they cannot be nailed, and loose bonnet hips are rebedded keeping the originals.

Concrete tile on the post-war houses and Herston bungalows. Here the tiles usually outlast the sand and cement under the ridge and hips, which cracks until a hip tile rocks in the wind. We rebed with a screw or clip through each piece, or fit a dry ridge and hip system. Mortar verges on the gable ends drop out in chunks, and a dry verge is the tidy fix. Valley troughs split or silt up, and the bottom strip of felt perishes and hangs into the gutter. We cut it back, fit an eaves tray and lap in new membrane, and change any rotten batten we find there.

Flat roofs over bays, balconies and back additions. Older flat roofs over bays and back additions were often laid almost level on plain boards. Felt, GRP and EPDM split, blister and hold puddles, and the upstand against the wall is the likeliest leak. Where the boards underneath are dry and firm, a patch over the split will hold. A deck that gives underfoot will not hold a patch, and that roof wants re-covering. More on flat roofing in Swanage. Where the flat roof covers a building split into flats, it is usually the freeholder's repair, so tell us who manages the building, since major works go through the section 20 consultation.

Gutters that spill at the eaves. Cast iron gutters on the old streets crack at the joints and rust at the brackets, and a blocked one pushes water back behind the fascia, where it passes for a roof leak. Sometimes clearing and resealing it is the whole repair. The gutter side of it is on our page for fascias, soffits and guttering in Swanage.

The prevailing south westerly crosses the Purbeck hills and drives rain at the south west slopes, while the seafront elevations take salt spray off the bay, which opens to the east. On those faces we check the ridge, the verges and the flashings first.

When to stop patching. Slates or tiles failing on every slope, felt that crumbles when a tile is lifted and battens a screwdriver sinks into mean the roof has little life left. The quote then prices a re-roof beside the repair, which is work for our roofers in Swanage.

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.

The older part of town sits inside the Swanage Conservation Area and Herston has one of its own, but putting back a matching stone, slate or tile is repair work and needs no application. The Planning Portal guidance explains where that line sits. If the house is listed, read Dorset Council's page on listed building consent before anything on the roof is touched.

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 the wind has loosened stone or ridge pieces above a pavement, keep people away from that side of the house and mention it when you ring, so anything loose comes down before the gap is sheeted. 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

Ridges, hips and verges

Ridges and verges on the old streets want lime

More than a quarter of the homes in Swanage were built before 1919. The old town lies in the Swanage Conservation Area, Herston has one too, and the town has 129 listed entries. On those roofs, a ridge, hip or verge whose bedding has cracked has two wrong answers.

The first is hard cement. It is stiffer and less permeable than the stone and old slate under it, so it holds water against them and cracks away again (why lime suits old masonry and cement does not). The second is a clip-on plastic dry ridge or verge kit, which changes how the roofline looks from the street.

So we lift and clean the ridge and hip pieces and bed them back in lime mortar (guidance on lime mortars), each with a hidden mechanical fixing, as BS 5534 expects whatever the bedding. The original pieces go back on. Lime wants mild, dry weather to set, so in a frost the ridge is made weathertight and bedded once it lifts.

On the post-war concrete tile houses and bungalows, a dry ridge and verge to BS 8612 is the neat answer. On a listed house, check the listing before we start.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Swanage

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

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