Roof repairs in Winterborne Kingston

Roof repairs

One fault, traced and put right

Water coming through a ceiling today? Ring 07435 839745 and tell us which room it is in, and whether the drip is near a chimney breast or a gable wall.

Maybe a tile turned up on the lawn after a blow from the west. Maybe a brown ring has spread across the bedroom ceiling below the stack, or the flat roof on the back extension drips by the door in heavy rain.

Each comes from one spot on the roof. We look from the road and the garden, go up where a roof ladder is safe, and check the loft in daylight. You get photographs and a written list of what the repair involves.

The repairs

Slipped tiles, split lead and the stack beside the thatch

The listed cottages in the old part of the village are thatched, North Farmhouse on West Street carries slate and the church is clay tiled. What is on your own roof we find out at the visit.

Clay plain tiles that have slid or split. A clay plain tile hangs on its batten by two small nibs, with a nail through it every few courses. Once a nib snaps or the nail rusts away, the tile creeps down and opens the lap above. We ease the damaged tile out and slot in a match, reclaimed where a new one would look raw next to weathered clay, held on a hook or tingle where no nail can reach. A few tiles take a morning once the ladder is set.

Concrete interlocking tiles. If your roof is concrete interlocking tile, the tile itself seldom breaks. A slipped one points to a clip that has corroded, a nail that has pulled out, or bedding at the verge or ridge that has turned to sand. The tile goes back on a new clip. Where verge mortar has gone, a dry verge system screwed into the batten ends leaves nothing to wash out.

Natural slate and rusted nails. A slate roof stays on only as long as its nails. When they rust through, slates start sliding out one at a time and the gap lets rain straight onto the felt. One slate goes back on a copper tingle, a strip nailed to the batten and turned up under the slate's tail. When slates are dropping all over a slope, every nail on it is going, and that slope needs stripping and re-nailing.

Ridge, hip and verge. Bedding mortar under a ridge tile shrinks and cracks with age. The most exposed side of a house here faces south west, and wind pulls hardest at the edges of a roof, so a loose ridge end or verge is where it gets hold. We lift the loose tiles, knock the old bedding off, and set them back with a mechanical fixing into each one, as BS 5534 expects. A dry fix ridge goes on only where the tile profile allows it. A run of ridge takes about a day.

Brick stacks letting water in. A damp patch beside a chimney breast sends us to the stack first. Three things let water in there: a cement fillet where lead soakers and stepped flashing should be, cracked flaunching round the pots that lets rain into the top of the stack, and soft pointing that lets the brickwork drink. We cut the fillet out and dress in lead, re-form the flaunching and repoint the joints the flashing tucks into. More on stack work under chimney repairs.

Lead valleys and abutments. A valley takes the water off two slopes at once, so a split sheet or an opened lap lets through far more than a cracked tile. Some older valleys were formed in mortar with cut tiles, and that mortar washes out. Relaying a valley means lifting the tiles or slates either side and laying new lead in lengths short enough to move with the heat, so allow a day or two. An abutment, where a porch or lean-to runs into the house wall, gets the same treatment in stepped lead and soakers.

Flat roofs on extensions and dormers. Felt blisters where damp is trapped under it and splits where it folds up the wall at the upstand. A small split over a dry, firm deck takes a patch. If the deck flexes underfoot, water has already got into it and a patch has nothing to stick to. More on flat roofing in Winterborne Kingston.

After a big westerly. Wind lifts a roof at its corners and edges, so storm damage shows at the verge, the ridge ends and the bottom course at the eaves. Photograph it from the ground for your insurer before anything is moved. We make the roof weathertight first, refixing what can go back and sheeting what cannot, then price the proper repair. See emergency roof repairs.

Not always the roof. A blocked gutter or rotten fascia can leave a mark that looks like a roof leak, and our fascias, soffits and guttering in Winterborne Kingston page deals with that side.

When patching stops making sense. Whenever tiles come off for a repair, we check the battens and the underlay round the hole. If the batten ends are soft and the felt is brittle or missing across the whole slope, one repair will lead to the next. At that point the slope needs re-covering, and our page for roofers in Winterborne Kingston explains how that job runs.

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 Winterborne Kingston there is no conservation area, so putting back like for like needs no application. On one of the listed buildings, a repair that changes the material or the look of the roof needs listed building consent from Dorset Council first.

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. For a Winterborne Kingston roof, say whether the wet patch is by the chimney breast, on the south west wall or under a flat roof, as each points us to a different fault. 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

Thatch next door, tile or slate on yours

The oldest houses in Winterborne Kingston are rendered cob and brick cottages under thatch, with brick stacks at the ends. Crofters and Rose Cottage on Sackville Street, and The Old Parsonage on East Street, are listed examples. If the leak is in the thatch, you need a specialist thatcher, and we do not thatch. What we do take on is the brick end stack, with its lead flashing, flaunching and pointing. We also mend the join where a tiled extension or the house next door meets a thatched roof, in lead or tile, and the valley or soakers at that join. We trace the water to find them and fix them without disturbing the thatch.

Seven entries in the village are listed. On those, putting back like for like is normally fine. Swapping the material, changing the ridge or taking down a stack is another matter, and listed building consent comes first, so check before the work and not after. Slate on a listed house is a good example. On a roof like North Farmhouse on West Street, a slate that slips is refixed on a copper tingle so the original slate stays in place. Mortar has no part in it.

Nearby, and next door

Roof repairs near Winterborne Kingston

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

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