Roof repairs in Wimborne Minster
Clay tile, Welsh slate, estate concrete tile, lead and flat roofs repaired across Wimborne Minster, with the fault found and priced in writing after a free visit.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Roof repairs
Find the gap, mend the gap
Yes, we repair roofs in Wimborne Minster: a clay tile slid off its batten, a slate on a rusted nail, a cracked estate ridge, a split soaker between two shops, or a blistered flat roof. We find the one place the rain gets past the covering, mend that, and price it in writing after a free site visit.
If water is getting in as you read this, ring 07435 839745 and tell us the street and the room it is showing in.
Perhaps two clay tiles have landed on the footway under a Georgian front on East Borough. Perhaps the top flat over a shop in Cornmarket has a brown ring on the bedroom ceiling after a wet week. Or a bungalow ridge has a dark gap you can see from the lawn.
Each has one cause you can put a finger on. Thomas Hannen goes up where it is safe, looks in the roof space in daylight and photographs what he finds, so you see the fault before you agree to anything. If the whole covering has had its day, he says so, and that job goes to our roofers in Wimborne Minster.
The repairs
Clay tile, slate and concrete tile: what fails and how we mend it
The old centre is mostly brick under handmade clay plain tile, with Welsh slate on some nineteenth century buildings. The estates built after the war and through the 1980s and 1990s are almost all concrete interlocking tile. Each lets water in at its own weak point.
Clay plain tiles sliding out. A plain tile hangs on its batten by two small nibs, or on the oldest roofs by an oak peg. When a nib snaps, a peg rots or the batten goes soft, the tile slips and leaves a gap two courses deep. We slide a tile back in and hold it with a hook or tingle where it cannot be nailed. New machine-made clay stands out on a handmade roof on West Street or Church Street, so we look for a reclaimed tile of the same size and colour. Tiles flaking in layers across a whole slope mean single tiles will not hold it together.
Hidden gutters behind a brick parapet. On several Georgian fronts the roof sits out of sight behind the parapet, and its rain runs along a lined gutter to one outlet. Grit collects at the outlet, the gutter fills in a downpour, and water climbs over the lining into the top of the front wall. You see a damp patch high on the front bedroom wall, not a drip. We clear it, pour water through to prove the fall, and reline any split in lead laid in short stepped lengths. Clearing and testing is a morning, a reline a day or two.
Party walls between shops. Along Cornmarket or East Borough, each roof meets the next against a raised party wall, kept dry by lead soakers under every tile and a stepped flashing over them. When the flashing pulls out of its joint or a soaker splits, water runs down inside the wall and can show next door. Tracing it can mean looking at both roofs. Renewing a run of step flashing is usually a day.
Dormers and town chimneys. Some older houses in the centre have attic rooms lit by dormers, and water gets in at the lead apron under the window or the soakers down each cheek. A stack serving several fireplaces has a wide back gutter where leaves sit. We lift the tiles at the junction and dress new lead in, usually half a day to a day. Loose brickwork or cracked flaunching is chimney repairs, and lead alone will not cure it.
Welsh slate on the Victorian terraces. The slate outlives its iron nails. A slate that has dropped or cracked is drawn out and a matching one goes in on a tingle, a strip of lead or copper hooked under its tail. The back additions behind these terraces have their own small valleys, and a blocked one floods the kitchen ceiling. Slates coming down all over one slope is nail sickness, and that slope wants stripping and re-nailing.
Concrete tile on the estates. Post-war and later houses and bungalows carry concrete interlocking tile on trussed rafters. The mortar under the ridge and the gable verge lets go, bungalow hip tiles lift in the wind, and a tile cracks under someone fitting a dish. In the loft, the bitumen felt underlay goes brittle where it drops into the gutter, and rain runs behind the fascia. We fit a dry ridge and dry verge screwed down to BS 8612, and let new membrane and an eaves carrier tray in at the gutter line. A ridge is usually a day.
Flat roofs. Felt over a garage, a dormer or a shop's back addition blisters, splits at the upstand and ponds where the deck has sagged. A small split on a sound, dry deck can be patched in a few hours. A soft deck will not hold a patch, and re-covering in felt, GRP or EPDM is on our page for flat roofing in Wimborne Minster.
On a listed roof. Clay goes back as clay, lead as lead, and a ridge is bedded in the same kind of mortar it came off, with a hidden mechanical fixing to meet BS 5534.
Wind damage and when to stop. Inland here, storm damage means ordinary wind lift: a ridge tile off or a verge loosened. We sheet the gap and mend it once the weather allows. When the same slope has been patched again and again and the felt tears wherever a tile is lifted, the quote prices a re-roof beside the repair so you can compare 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.
The centre of town lies inside the Wimborne Minster Conservation Area, and more than 160 listed entries sit within it, the Minster among them. Putting back the same tile, slate or lead is repair and needs no application, and Planning Portal guidance on roofs shows where that line falls. If your building is listed, read Dorset Council's page on listed building consent before anyone touches the roof, because work that alters the historic fabric can need consent even when it matches.
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 Wimborne that might be a three storey Georgian front on West Street with the footway at its foot, a flat over a shop on Cornmarket reached only through the yard behind, or an estate bungalow with a clear path down the side. 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. If clay tiles have come off a street front in the centre, keep people clear of the footway below that side and say so when you ring, so anything else 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.
Flats and leaks
A leak in a flat or over a shop: whose roof is it?
About a third of the homes in Wimborne Minster are flats: flats over the shops in the old centre, and purpose-built blocks further out. With a leak, the person holding the bucket may not be the one who can order the permanent repair or pay for it.
If you own a leasehold flat, the roof above you almost always belongs to the freeholder. Contain the water, then write to the managing agent or freeholder that day, with photographs of the ceiling, the room, and whether it only shows in heavy rain or wind. A make-safe, such as a sheet over the gap, a slipped tile refixed or a blocked outlet cleared, is a small job an agent can agree without delay. Bigger work, such as re-covering the roof, renewing a run of lead or putting scaffold up on a street front, usually goes through the consultation set out in section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, so expect notices to reach you before the work starts.
Over a shop, the roof may belong to the shop's owner, or to neither of you, so find out whose it is before anybody climbs up. If you rent, go to your landlord: a landlord must keep the structure and exterior in repair, including gutters. Whoever instructs us, we come out, find the entry point, photograph it and put the repair in an itemised written quote the agent or freeholder can work from.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We repair roofs across Wimborne Minster and BH21, from the centre, East Borough and Poole Road out along Leigh Road and towards Walford, about eight miles from our Boscombe base, with Dorset Council as the planning authority. 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 Wimborne Minster
Nearby places we also cover for roof repairs, with straight-line distances from Wimborne Minster, and the other trades we offer in Wimborne Minster itself.
Roof repairs nearby
Our other trades in Wimborne Minster
Builders in Wimborne: all our building work Everything we do in Wimborne Roof repairs, all areas Every area we cover
Questions
Questions about roof repairs in Wimborne Minster
What is the best time of year to get a roof repaired?
Any time of year, in a dry spell. A slipped tile or slate can go back in most weather. Ridge and verge mortar waits for frost to lift, so in a cold snap we make the roof weathertight first and bed it afterwards.
How much does a roof repair cost?
It depends on where the fault is, how we reach it and what we find when the tiles come up, so we do not give a figure before seeing the roof. A tile over a back porch and one above a three storey front are different jobs. After the free visit you get a written, itemised quote, and how we price a job explains each line.
Can you match the old clay tiles on my house?
Usually. Handmade clay varies in size, colour and curve, so we look for reclaimed tiles that match, or borrow sound tiles from a hidden rear slope and put the new ones there.
Do you repair thatched roofs?
No. A thatched roof needs a specialist thatcher. Where the thatch meets a tiled roof, or a chimney with lead flashings, we can repair that part of it.
Free quote
Tell us where the water is showing
Send your postcode, the room the stain is in and a photo if you have one. Thomas comes out, finds the cause and puts the repair price in writing, free.