Roofers in Ringwood

Ringwood

On the forest edge, the trees set the maintenance calendar

Ringwood town centre sits outside the New Forest National Park, but Poulner, Hightown, Crow and Hangersley are inside it. So whether the National Park Authority has a say in your job depends on your address rather than your postal town, and it is worth settling before anyone orders a tile. Straight repairs and like-for-like replacement are the least contentious route either way.

Ringwood sits on the Hampshire bank of the Avon with the New Forest starting more or less at the end of the road. Lovely to live with. Hard on a roof.

Mature deciduous trees overhang a lot of the older streets, and every autumn the gutters, the valleys between roof planes and any flat roof sitting underneath them fill with wet leaf litter. Once an outlet or a valley is blocked, water does not simply spill over the front of the gutter. It backs up sideways under the tile laps, soaks the felt and the batten ends, and a roof that was sound in September starts marking a bedroom ceiling in November.

The shade does the slower damage. Slopes under tree cover, and anything facing north, barely dry out between one shower and the next, so moss and algae take hold far faster here than on an open coastal roof. Moss is not just untidy. It sits in the laps and holds water against the tile, and when a hard frost gets into that water it lifts the surface off the tile a fragment at a time.

Inland, salt is not the enemy here. Frost and vegetation are. Older cottages nearer the town centre carry steep pitches, plain tiles or slate, tile-hung elevations and soft historic brick, all of which want repairing in materials that match rather than whatever is cheapest on the merchant's shelf.

If you are not sure which side of the boundary you are on, the National Park Authority publishes an interactive property map that answers it for a specific address in a few seconds, and its heritage and conservation guidance covers what changes inside the Park. We will tell you honestly when we think a job needs that check, and we will quote for matching materials so the question does not arise in the first place.

We cover Ringwood town and the settlements around it, mostly across the BH24 postcodes: Poulner, Hightown, Crow, Bickerley, Ashley Heath, St Ives, St Leonards and out to Burley. Ringwood is in Hampshire, not Dorset, so the local planning authority is New Forest District Council rather than Dorset Council or BCP. Worth knowing that BH24 spans more than one district, so the postcode on its own does not tell you which authority you are dealing with, and inside the National Park boundary it is the Park Authority that decides. We check the address rather than assuming.

Book a free roof inspection Roof cleaning & moss treatment

Steep hipped roof part way through a re-tile, with breathable membrane and new treated battens exposed

Steep pitches, matched materials On older fabric the felt, battens and detailing matter as much as the tile.

What we do in Ringwood

Every trade, one company

The same team covers all of it, so a leak, the moss that caused it and the plaster it damaged do not need three separate firms.

Roofing

Steep-pitched cottage roofs and leaf-blocked valleys are the two jobs that come up most, and both are about detailing rather than the field of the roof: re-lining a valley, re-forming a lead soaker, replacing perished felt at the eaves where the water has been standing. Where a covering has genuinely gone we re-roof in a matching tile or slate over breathable membrane and treated battens.

Roof repairs & new roofs

Exterior Cleaning & Treatments

This is the service the shade creates. Moss and algae come off by hand and by soft wash rather than by blasting a fragile old tile, the gutters and valleys are cleared out at the same time, and a biocide slows the regrowth so you are not back to a green roof by the following autumn.

Roof, wall & drive cleaning

Bricklaying & Repointing

Soft historic brick in a damp, shaded spot suffers when the joints have been pointed in hard cement, because the moisture leaves through the brick face instead of the mortar and the face spalls off in frost. On older walls and chimney stacks we repoint in lime so the wall can breathe, and match brick and joint profile to what is already there.

Brickwork & repointing

Plastering & Rendering

Most of our plastering here follows water: a stained or blown ceiling under a valley that had been overflowing for a season, or a chimney breast that needs stripping back and re-skimming once the flashing is right. Outside, rendered elevations in permanent shade green over and hold damp, so they get cleaned and repaired rather than simply painted over.

Plastering & rendering

Insulation

Steep old roofs give you a tall, awkward loft that is often part boarded, part rafter-lined and barely insulated at the eaves, which is exactly where the heat escapes. We insulate between and over the joists with mineral wool, or work at rafter level with rigid board or a reflective multi-layer where the space is used and head height is tight.

Loft & wall insulation

Driveways & Patios

Paving under trees is a different animal: leaf tannin stains the slabs, the algae film that follows makes them genuinely slippery by December, and roots lift edges and crack a rigid surface from underneath. We lay block paving, resin and tarmac drives and porcelain patios, and we set out drainage with the leaf fall in mind rather than against it.

Driveways & patios

What actually goes wrong

The forest-edge list

None of these mean the roof has failed. They all mean the trees are ahead of the maintenance, and the fix is cheap now and expensive later.

Leaf mulch packed solid in a valley, so the roof drains sideways under the tiles
Seedlings and grass growing out of the gutter, which means the mulch has become soil
A thick green mat on the north slope while the south slope looks almost clean

Broken clumps of moss sitting in the gutter or blocking the downpipe shoe
Flaking, pitted tile faces on the shaded slope, which is frost working on a wet tile
A damp, dark tide mark on brickwork or render below a gutter joint that has been dripping

Book a look before autumn Call about a leak

Valleys, outlets and flat roofs

The parts of the roof the leaves find first

A pitched roof under trees can look fine from the pavement and still be holding a season of leaf litter where you cannot see it. Valleys, box gutters behind parapets, the back edge of a dormer and any flat roof tucked under a branch all collect debris and hold standing water, and standing water is what finds the weak lap.

On flat roofs the outlet is the thing. A single leaf raft over a rainwater outlet turns the whole roof into a shallow pond, and the extra weight plus the constant wet shortens the life of felt or a tired GRP surface considerably. We clear it, check the falls, and tell you whether the covering has years left or needs replacing in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber.

Where we can, we fix the cause rather than the symptom: re-lining a valley properly, setting outlets where the water actually goes, or fitting guards on the gutters that overhanging branches sit above.

Grey GRP fibreglass flat roof with three rooflights, clear outlets and neat edge trims

Clear outlets, correct falls A flat roof under trees fails at the outlet long before the membrane gives up.

Questions

Ringwood questions we get asked

Why does moss grow so heavily on roofs around Ringwood?

Shade and shelter. A slope that sits under tree cover, or faces north behind a hedge, never gets the few hours of direct sun and moving air that dry a tile out. The surface stays damp for most of the year, spores settle, and moss establishes in the tile laps where it holds even more water. The same roof on an open plot half a mile away can look almost clean. It is a maintenance job rather than a fault with the roof, but it does need doing before frost gets into the wet tile.

How often should gutters and valleys be cleared on a house surrounded by trees?

Twice a year suits most properties on the forest edge, and the important clearance is the one after the leaves have finished dropping rather than halfway through. If the roof has a valley, a hidden gutter behind a parapet, or a flat roof sitting under overhanging branches, that is the part to check, because a blocked valley backs water sideways under the tiles instead of simply spilling over the front of the gutter. We clear the downpipes and gullies at the same time, since a clear gutter draining into a packed downpipe is no better.

Does the New Forest National Park affect roof work in Ringwood?

Parts of the area fall within the National Park, and there are listed and historic buildings in and around the town as well. Straight repairs and like-for-like replacement are usually the least contentious route. Changing the look of a visible elevation, altering the roof line, or swapping to a different tile or slate is where you should check with the National Park Authority or the local planning department before ordering anything. We will tell you honestly when we think a job needs that check, and we will quote for matching materials so the question does not arise in the first place.

Can you match the tiles on an older cottage?

Usually, yes. Plain clay tiles, natural slate and older concrete profiles can be sourced new or reclaimed, and on a steep pitch we will often take sound tiles from a hidden elevation to make good the front of the house and use the new stock where it is not seen. Where a tile is genuinely obsolete we show you the nearest match before we order it rather than after. On older fabric we also use lime mortar for bedding and pointing where the wall needs to breathe.

Nearby

Also working just up and down the road

Verwood

Much newer estates a few miles west, with pine needles rather than leaf litter in the gutters and insulation upgrades instead of re-roofs.

Roofers in Verwood

Ferndown

Detached houses and bungalows from the 1960s to the 1990s, where the concrete tiles are now old enough to need replacing rather than patching.

Roofers in Ferndown

Everywhere else

We are based in Bournemouth and work across Dorset and the Hampshire border. The full list, with what makes each town different, is on one page.

Areas we cover

Trade by trade

Each trade, written for Ringwood

The same local evidence, read through each trade in turn. Ground conditions decide a driveway, exposure decides a roof, and the age of the housing decides insulation.

Who you are dealing with

A local firm you can check

Ringwood town and the settlements around it are on our list, mostly BH24: Poulner, Hightown, Crow, Bickerley, Ashley Heath, St Ives, St Leonards and out to Burley. The planning authority there is New Forest District Council rather than Dorset.

You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. That takes a minute to check. Thomas Hannen owns the firm and he prices every job himself, so the person who quotes it is the person answerable for it. One multi-trade team does the work, and none of it is sub-contracted out to somebody you have never met.

There is a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on our Checkatrade profile. The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies, and scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Roofing guides

Concrete vs clay roof tiles: which is right? Planning, building regs or listed building consent Storm damage to a roof: the first 24 hours