Roof repairs in Winfrith Newburgh

Roof repairs

Everything on the cottage except the thatch

Rain getting into a room in the village right now? Ring 07435 839745 and say whether it shows on a ceiling, low down a wall or on the chimney breast.

Perhaps the plaster inside the back kitchen has gone dark along the line where the slate lean-to meets the house. Perhaps a slate over the front porch has slid down and left a gap. Or the cement cap on the stack that rises through your thatch has cracked, and a brown mark has come up on the bedroom chimney breast.

Thomas checks the small roofs and the stack from the ground and a ladder, looks in the loft where he can, and photographs the fault. If the water is coming through the thatch itself, he tells you on the day that it needs a thatcher.

The repairs

The small roofs that let water in around a cob cottage

Read the listing descriptions for the old cottages in this parish and the same words keep coming back: plastered cob walls, a thatched roof, a brick stack, and a slate or tiled lean-to, porch or rear wing built up against the cob. The thatch goes to a thatcher. The rest of that list can leak, and this is how each part gets repaired.

Where a lean-to or porch roof meets the house wall. The top edge of a small roof stops against the wall, and that joint is the weak point. On these cottages it was often closed with a cement fillet or, later, a bead of mastic. Cement is harder than the lime plaster it sits on, so it shrinks away, a hairline crack opens, and rain runs behind it and down inside the wall. We cut the old fillet out and dress a lead cover flashing down over the slates or tiles, fixed into the plaster so it does not rely on a seal. Where the house was built with a lime fillet, we renew it in lime. A porch is usually a morning. A long rear lean-to can take a day.

Slates sliding off a lean-to. Old slate on a porch or outhouse lets go when its nails rust through, which is nail sickness. We slide a matching slate back in and hold it with a copper nail through the gap or a lead tingle hooked under its tail. Lean-tos are often built at a shallow pitch, and slate laid too flat can leak through the laps even with every slate in place. If that is the cause, more tingles will not stop it, and we say so.

Cracked clay tiles and tiled extensions. Some houses in the village have tiled roofs, and some listed cottages have a tiled single storey extension at the back. A plain clay tile hangs on its nibs. Frost splits the face or snaps a nib, and the cracked or broken tile slips or lets water through. We lift the courses above and hang a reclaimed tile of the same size and colour. Where a tiled wing runs into the main roof, the valley or the soakers along that join are checked while we are up there.

The brick stack. Nearly all the listed cottages here have one. Water gets in through cracked flaunching round the pots, open mortar joints, and the lead where the stack passes through the roof. On a slated or tiled roof, the flashings, soakers and back gutter are all ours. On a stack rising through thatch, we can repoint the brickwork above the thatch, re-bed the pots and renew the flaunching, and the lead at the thatch line is agreed with your thatcher before either of us starts. Old soft brick is repointed in a lime mortar. More on chimney repairs.

Ridges and verges on a tiled or slated roof. The south west gable takes the driven rain, so its verge mortar washes out first. On clay tile or slate we re-bed the ridge and verge in mortar, with a mechanical fixing into each piece. If your house has concrete interlocking tiles, a dry ridge and dry verge kit made to BS 8612 on dry fixed ridge and verge systems is often the tidier fix, and needs no mortar at all.

Corrugated iron lean-tos. Some listed cottages in the parish are recorded with corrugated iron over a back lean-to. The sheets rust at the laps and fixing holes. We replace the rusted sheet and refix it with new sealing washers.

Cement sheet and asbestos slate. The listing for 82 Blacknoll Lane records a corrugated asbestos porch roof, and Rose Lawn has a rear wing listed with an asbestos slate roof. Nobody should walk on, drill or cut an old cement sheet or slate until a sample has been tested. If it is positive, a specialist asbestos contractor handles it.

Flat roofs on extensions. Felt, GRP and EPDM split, blister and give way at the upstand, the strip turned up against the wall. Over a soft, wet deck a patch will not stay put. See flat roofing in Winfrith Newburgh.

Gutters and downpipes. A split gutter or a downpipe that stops short and empties at the foot of the wall can soak a cob wall worse than a missing slate. That is a gutter repair, not a roof one: fascias, soffits and guttering in Winfrith Newburgh.

After a storm, and repair or replace. A few missing tiles or slates and a lifted ridge after a south westerly are a repair, with a temporary sheet over the gap until then. Rusted nails on every course, battens that give when pressed and felt that tears at a touch mean the covering has no life left, and a re-roof is a job for our roofers in Winfrith Newburgh.

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.

In Winfrith Newburgh a like for like repair on an unlisted house needs no application, and Planning Portal guidance on roofs explains where that line sits. The village has its own conservation area and the parish has 58 listed entries, so if your house is one of them, speak to Dorset Council about listed building consent before any lead, slate or mortar 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. If the wet is showing low down on a wall beside a lean-to or porch, and not on a ceiling, tell us when you ring, because on a cob cottage that points to the flashing or a gutter and it is the one to stop first. 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

Why a wet cob wall comes before a ceiling stain

Cob is earth mixed with straw and built up in thick walls. It stands well for centuries as long as it stays dry at the top and at the bottom. Left wet, it softens and can start to slump. So on one of the plastered cob cottages in the old part of the village, a leaking flashing over a lean-to, or a gutter pouring down the plaster, matters more than a ridge that has lost some mortar. If you are choosing what to do first, do that.

The repair also has to let the wall dry out. Old lime plaster lets moisture out. A cement fillet or a line of mastic traps it, and the wall stays damp long after the roof is fixed, so against cob we use lead or lime and never a sealant. Roof water should also leave the house by a gully or a drain, and Approved Document H covers where it should go. The ground round the village is rated as one that shrinks and swells as it wets and dries, so water tipped at the foot of a wall is bad news below ground as well.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Winfrith Newburgh

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

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