Roof repairs in Wareham

Wareham, BH20

A slate in the flower bed, mortar on the path, a ring on the ceiling

If rain is getting into a Wareham house now, ring 07435 839745, put a bowl down, and tell us which side of the roof the wet room sits under.

The call starts with something small. A grey slate turns up in the border below a cottage roof. Lumps of mortar lie on the path beneath a gable end. Or a brown ring spreads across a bedroom ceiling after a wet south westerly.

We look from the ground, from a ladder and from the loft hatch, and show you pictures of what is broken. The repair is then priced in writing. If mending it no longer makes sense, you are told so, with the photographs. Our main roof repairs page sets out the general approach.

The repairs

Old-town clay and slate, estate concrete tile: the faults on each

About half the homes in Wareham were built between 1945 and the early eighties, and roughly one in five is a bungalow. Roofs of that age are usually concrete interlocking tile, often at a shallow pitch, over bitumen felt. The older houses inside the walls, rebuilt in brick after the fire of 1762, carry clay plain tile and natural slate.

A lifted interlocking tile. At a low pitch, a tile lifted at its side lock lets rain run sideways under its neighbour, so the drip indoors can land a metre from the break. We lift the course above, fit the same profile, reclaimed if it is no longer made, and clip it to the batten. After a storm has stripped tiles, the first visit sheets the gap as a temporary cover; see emergency roof repairs.

Bungalow hips, verges and ridge. A hipped bungalow has four hips, each capped in sand and cement and held at the foot by a hip iron. When the bedding cracks the tiles creep downhill, and a rusted iron lets the bottom one drop. On gables facing south west, the verge mortar washes out first and turns up as grey crumbs on the path. We rebed with a mechanical fixing through every tile, or fit dry hip, ridge and verge to BS 8612; BS 5534 expects each tile fixed either way.

Where an extension meets the house. A later porch, garage or kitchen meets the wall at an abutment that wants lead: soakers under the tiles and a cover flashing tucked into a raked out brick joint. A mortar fillet in its place shrinks from the wall, and the stain shows where the old ceiling meets the new. We cut it out and dress in new lead. Rotten felt at the eaves gets an eaves tray under the bottom courses.

Flat roofs over garages and back extensions. Felt blisters, splits at its joints, peels at the upstand and ponds where the deck sags. On a firm, dry deck we cut out the damage and patch it. A soft deck needs a new covering in felt, GRP or EPDM; see flat roofing in Wareham.

Gutters that pass for a roof leak. A blocked outlet or a downpipe emptying against the wall can put a damp patch indoors, so we check the gutter before lifting a tile. Roof water belongs in a gully or drain, as Approved Document H sets out, which matters on ground that shrinks in dry summers. The gutters themselves are on fascias, soffits and guttering in Wareham.

Slipped slates in the old streets. On natural slate the nails give up first. Their heads rust through, which is nail sickness, and slates drop out one at a time. For one or two we fit a copper tingle or stainless hook and slide a matched slate up into place. A whole course on the move gets stripped and re-nailed onto sound battens.

Clay plain tile. Plain tiles hang by two nibs, nailed every few courses. A snapped nib or perished peg lets one slide out, and because plain tile is double lapped the gap may not leak until the felt below has had enough. We refit a tile of matching size and colour. Tiles sliding all over a slope mean the battens have finished.

Valleys, chimneys and dormers. On the older houses the leaks start at the lead: valleys, back gutters behind parapets, aprons round a stack, dormer cheeks. Cracked flaunching and open joints let water down inside the chimney breast. We rebed, re-dress or renew the lead and repoint; more on chimney repairs. Where a shop has a flat above it, the low rear roof gets the same patch or renew judgement.

Thatch. A few listed buildings in the old town are thatched, 33 North Street and 1 Church Lane among them. Thatching is not our trade, and those roofs belong with a specialist thatcher. A brick chimney with lead at its base, or a tiled range beside the thatch, we can repair.

Repair or re-roof. On a seventies concrete tile roof, a few tiles, one hip or a length of ridge is a repair; BRE's testing of sixty year old roof tiles found tiles older than these still sound. Felt that holds together and firm battens mean the roof is worth mending. Crumbling felt, soft battens and failed fixings across a slope mean a new covering, and our page for roofers in Wareham deals with that.

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.

Planning and building control in Wareham are both Dorset Council's. Almost every repair needs no application; the exception is a visible change of material on a listed building, which can need listed building consent before work starts.

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. From the garden, look at the gable and ridge on the south west side for gaps or fallen mortar, tell us what you see when you ring, and leave the ladder in the shed. 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

Inside the conservation area

Patching an old-town roof: the tile has to match

Old Wareham was largely rebuilt in red brick and Purbeck limestone after the 1762 fire, and the Wareham Conservation Area, designated in 1970 and now looked after by Dorset Council, covers that core. Close to two hundred listed entries stand in and around the old town, most roofed in clay plain tile, with natural slate next. A like for like repair there needs no application. Swapping clay or slate for concrete tile, or natural slate for fibre cement, changes how the roof looks, and on a listed building works affecting the character of a listed building need consent. The area's Article 4 direction covers satellite antennas only.

So in the old streets a slipped plain tile or slate goes back as a matched or reclaimed one of the same size, colour and nib or hole pattern. With no match to be had, sound old tiles move to the front slope and the closest new tile goes on a rear slope out of sight. On the post-war estates outside the area, a matched concrete interlocking tile is the right fix.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Wareham

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

Everything we do in Wareham Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover