Roof repairs in Thorney Hill

The repairs

What fails on cottage slate and post-war concrete tile

Around Forest Road, School Road and Valley Lane, older brick cottages stand next to post-war detached houses and bungalows. The two ages of roof were built differently, so they leak differently.

Slipped slates and plain tiles on the cottages. Natural slate outlasts the iron nails holding it, so a rusted nail lets a slate slide and leaves a gap. One or two go back on a tingle, a strip of lead nailed to the batten and folded up under the tail, or on a slate hook. A clay plain tile hangs by its nibs, and when an old nib snaps the tile drops out of its course. We rehang it, nail it, and check the course either side for the next one about to go.

Torching that has fallen away. Many older roofs have no underlay, only lime mortar torching pointed up under the laps from inside. When it crumbles onto the loft boards, wind-driven rain gets straight through. If the tiles are sound, re-torching from inside needs no scaffold.

Cement fillets at chimneys and walls. Where a cottage slope meets its stack or a taller wall, you may find a sand and cement fillet where lead should be. It shrinks away from the brick, and water runs down the crack into the wall and onto the ceiling. The lasting repair is lead soakers under each course with a stepped flashing chased into the mortar joints.

The chimney as the leak. Cracked flaunching, a loose pot, open joints in the stack or a back gutter full of moss will all put water into the room below. If a stack is no longer used for a fire, capping it with a ventilated cap stops rain getting down the flue. More on chimney repairs.

Ridge, hip and verge on the concrete-tile houses. Interlocking concrete tiles on post-war houses were usually finished with ridge and hip tiles bedded in mortar. The mortar cracks, drops out, and the tile starts to rock. Bungalow hips suffer most: a loose hip tile at the bottom corner, and a hip iron that has rusted away or was never fitted. We rebed with mechanical fixings, or fit a dry hip and ridge system that screws each tile down. Verges on the gable ends lose their mortar bedding the same way, and a dry verge system of clipped caps closes them for good.

Felt that has sagged at the eaves. Under concrete tiles of that age sits bitumen felt. Where it has perished or dropped at the eaves, water running down it misses the gutter and soaks into the fascia and the wall plate. An eaves support tray under the bottom course fixes it. If the boards have already rotted, see fascias, soffits and guttering in Thorney Hill.

Single cracked tiles and valleys. A concrete tile cracked by a fallen branch is swapped by lifting the ones above and clipping in a match. After a storm, a missing tile or a broken tile gets a temporary sheet over the gap until the match arrives. Valleys may be mortar-bedded valley tiles, old GRP or lead, and each one cracks, splits or fills with debris in its own way.

Flat roofs on garages, porches and extensions. Felt splits and blisters, upstands pull away, drip edges lift and outlets block, then water ponds on a sagging deck. Over a firm, dry deck a split can be patched. A deck that flexes underfoot will not hold a patch, and that is flat roofing in Thorney Hill.

Trees before tiles. Plots on the forest edge gather leaf and moss in the valleys and gutters, so what looks like a leak is often water overflowing a blocked valley. We clear it and run water down before replacing anything.

Repair or replace. The answer turns on how much life is left in what you cannot see. On a cottage, patching works until the nails or battens have gone across a whole slope. On a concrete-tile house, sorting the ridge, hips, verges and a few tiles often buys years. When it does not, the quote says so, and a re-roof is work for our roofers in Thorney Hill. A thatched roof needs a specialist thatcher, and on a thatched house we repair only the lead, the chimney and any tiled roof alongside it.

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 Thorney Hill that runs from a garage flat roof reached off a stepladder, through the hip of a single storey bungalow, to the stack on a two storey brick cottage that needs a tower or a scaffold. 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.

Who you are dealing with

A local firm you can check

From our base at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, Thorney Hill is about 9 miles by road. We cover the hamlet from School Road and Willow Lane out to Thorney Hill Holms, and on through Shirley, Holmsley and Bransgore, all BH23. The National Park Authority handles planning out here, and New Forest District Council handles building control. 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.