Roofing and Building in Wimborne
Extensions, structural openings, new brickwork tied into old walls, plastering and rendering, then roofing and lime repointing, for the period town round the Minster and the newer streets beyond it. Free site visit and a written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Building work in Wimborne
Extending an older house in Wimborne
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd builds rear extensions, forms openings with a steel beam, ties new brick into old walls, and plasters, renders and roofs the result, in Wimborne Minster, Colehill, Merley and the BH21 villages. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free, and Thomas Hannen prices the job himself.
Looking for a builder for the whole job? Builders in Wimborne sets out every trade we take on in Wimborne, how to choose a builder and how pricing works.
On a newer house an extension is blockwork with a facing brick outer skin, and the join is simple. On a solid-walled Victorian or Georgian house the join is the hard part. New work has to be tied into soft old brick without cracking it, the new mortar must be no harder than the old, and the damp course and floor levels have to line up so the new room does not draw moisture into the old one. Approved Document C covers the damp side and Approved Document A the structure. A brick shell, the steel over a wide opening and the roof going on are all in our recent projects.
Around the bigger jobs we build garden walls and garages in matching brick, repoint in lime, plaster and render, lay drives with the drainage designed in and fit kitchens.
What to settle first
Whether it is permitted development or needs an application, which the householder permitted development rules decide. Whether building control gets a building notice or full plans. And whether your neighbour needs a party wall notice. Building control inspects as the work goes up and issues a completion certificate at the end.
Near the Stour and the Allen
The town centre is in the Wimborne Minster Conservation Area, and parts of it are in flood zone 2. If your extension needs a planning application and the house is in flood zone 2 or 3, the application needs a flood risk assessment. For a minor extension the Environment Agency's standing advice sets out what it must cover, mainly floor levels and flood resistant construction. Check the address on the government flood risk service before drawings are started.
If it is only the roof, the page for roofers in Wimborne covers repairs and re-roofs.
Wimborne, Dorset
Openings, walls and floors in a solid-walled house
Most building work on Wimborne's older houses is alteration to solid walls: a new opening, a rebuilt garden wall, an extension floor meeting an old one, or a crack that needs a proper repair. Each of those is done differently on a wall with no cavity and a lime mortar joint.
Cutting an opening in a solid wall
A Victorian or Georgian wall in the town is usually solid brick, bedded in lime. Opening it up means propping the wall above with needles and props, setting a steel or concrete lintel sized by an engineer on padstones, and packing the gap over it tight so the old brickwork cannot drop. The making good is in a lime mortar that matches, because a hard cement patch in a soft wall cracks the brick beside it. Approved Document A covers the structure and building control inspects it.
Garden walls and piers
An old boundary wall leans when roots, frost or a missing coping have got at it. If the bricks are sound it can come down and go back up on a new footing, reusing the brick. A new wall gets a footing, a damp-proof course, piers and a coping. The height limits for garden walls apply everywhere, and in the conservation area taking down a wall more than a metre high next to a road needs planning permission of its own, so ask before it comes down.
Where new floors meet old walls
Plenty of older houses in Wimborne have no damp-proof course. When an extension joins one, the new membrane and damp course are lapped into the old wall so the new floor cannot feed moisture into it, the outside ground stays below the old floor, and no new path runs tight against the old brick. Near the Stour and the Allen the floor level also follows the flood risk assessment, if the extension needs one.
Cracks and old lintels
A fine crack in an old wall is often seasonal movement, and lime lets the wall take it. A crack that is wider at the top, runs through the bricks or keeps opening gets an engineer's view before we touch it. Rotten timber lintels over old windows are replaced with steel or concrete ones and the brick arch made good.
Consent comes before the scaffold. On a listed building, and often on anything visible from the street in the conservation area, Dorset Council has to agree the work first. We put the specification in writing so you have something to submit, and we do not start on a listed building until consent is in place. Dorset Council's guidance on listed buildings is the place to start.
What we do here
Every trade, read through a period house
Wimborne gets the same trades as everywhere else we work, from roofing and brickwork to plastering, insulation, paving and cleaning. The specification is what changes once the building is a hundred and fifty years old.
Roofing
Older roofs in Wimborne Minster are usually plain clay tile or natural slate on steep pitches. The right repair is to strip, sort and relay the sound units with matching salvaged stock instead of dropping in a modern substitute that stands out from the pavement. Where a covering has genuinely gone we re-lay to the original gauge and re-detail the verges, valleys and ridge the way the roof was first built.
Roofing servicesBricklaying & repointing
Much of old Wimborne is solid brick laid in lime mortar, and that decides how it is repaired. The mortar in an old wall is meant to be softer than the brick, so moisture leaves through the joint. Cement pointing reverses that: the water leaves through the brick face and frost blows it off. So soft historic brick gets a lime joint raked out by hand and pointed to the original profile, on walls, chimney stacks, garden walls and piers.
Bricklaying & repointingPlastering & rendering
Interiors in the older houses are frequently lime plaster on lath. A modern gypsum skim straight over the top seals in moisture that the wall used to shed, which is why so much of it blows again within a couple of winters. We repair like for like where the building needs it, and we will talk you out of a hard cement render on an elevation that has to breathe.
Plastering & renderingInsulation
Warming up a solid-wall house is a different problem from warming up a modern one, because anything that stops the structure drying will show up as damp somewhere else. The loft is almost always the sensible place to start, and we will say plainly where an upgrade would do the building more harm than good.
Insulation servicesDriveways & patios
Frontages in Wimborne are on show from the street, so colour, edging and jointing matter more than they would on an estate. A hard surface laid tight to an old solid wall can raise the ground level and bridge the base of it. We set levels and drainage so water runs away from the building, and we flag anything that looks like it needs checking with the council first.
Driveways & patiosExterior cleaning
Inland and shaded means moss on north slopes and green algae on render and paving, not the salt scouring you get on the coast. Historic tile, soft brick and lime render will not take an aggressive pressure wash, so it is soft washing and a biocide treatment that does the work slowly instead of blasting the surface off.
Exterior cleaningReviews
What customers said
A new roof and a driveway and patio, in the customers' own words. The roofing customer had each stage explained, and the driveway and patio job was complex, with updates throughout.
…The team were friendly, professional, and always turned up when they said they would. They took the time to explain everything, so I knew exactly what was happening throughout…
…The job was quite complex and far from straightforward, but they handled everything with professionalism and skill. They were quick, efficient, friendly, and kept us updated throughout the whole process with excellent communication…
Straight answers
Three questions about older Wimborne houses
Can a solid-walled house in Wimborne be insulated?
Yes, starting with the loft, which is the easy gain and does not touch the walls. Solid walls stay sound by drying out, so anything that stops them, such as a foil-backed board inside or cement render outside, moves the damp somewhere else. For the walls the options are vapour-open boards finished in lime plaster. See wall insulation in Wimborne Minster.
Should I paint or render old brickwork?
Usually not, unless it was painted or rendered to begin with. Masonry paint and hard render trap moisture in a solid wall, and it comes out through the brick behind them. If a wall already has a coating, keep it breathable: limewash, mineral paint or lime render.
Can a new patio cause damp in an old house?
Yes. Raise the ground against a wall with no damp course and splashback and standing water soak into it. Keep the paving low, falling away from the house, with a gravel strip against the wall. See patios in Wimborne Minster.
Free quote
How do you get a free quote in Wimborne Minster?
Send the form or ring 07435 839745. Thomas Hannen comes out to Wimborne Minster, looks at the job and puts an itemised price in writing, and neither the visit nor the written quote costs anything.
Our base is at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth BH7 6HX. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Wimborne Minster?
Most repairs in Wimborne Minster need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Wimborne Minster |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Wimborne Minster. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Wimborne Minster Conservation Area and St Johns Rowlands Hill Conservation Area. They cover parts of Wimborne Minster, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Wimborne Minster. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Wimborne Minster. |
Questions
Questions about building work in Wimborne
How can I check a builder before work starts in Wimborne?
Look the company up on Companies House. Ours is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719, and the director is Thomas Hannen. Read reviews you can trace to a real customer, such as the verified one on our Checkatrade profile. Ask for the price in writing and itemised, and ask how anything unforeseen will be priced. Keep the deposit modest; Citizens Advice says not to agree to more than 25 percent. On an old wall, also ask what mortar they will use. The answer should be lime.
Do I need a builder or a building contractor for an extension?
For a house extension they are usually the same firm. The builder does the work, and the contractor is the party that signs to deliver the whole job and runs the site. What matters is that one firm takes responsibility. Under the CDM Regulations 2015, a homeowner's client duties pass to the contractor doing the work, so the firm you hire plans the job safely.
Can I build an extension on a Wimborne house near the rivers?
Usually, yes. Parts of the town near the Stour and the Allen are in the flood zone, so if the extension needs planning permission the application needs a flood risk assessment. For a householder extension the Environment Agency's standing advice keeps it short: the new floor set no lower than the existing one, and flood resistant construction below the likely flood level. Check the address before drawings are started.
My house is listed, or in the conservation area. Do I need consent?
Very possibly: listed building consent is normally needed for work that affects the character of a listed building, inside or out, and that can include re-roofing in a different material or repointing in a different mortar. In a conservation area the controls are lighter but still real, and they bite hardest on anything visible from the street. We will tell you what we think needs checking, we will put the specification in writing so you have something to submit, and we will not start work on a listed building until you have confirmation from the council.
Can you match the original bricks, tiles and mortar?
That is usually the whole job on a period property. We source reclaimed or handmade bricks and plain clay tiles rather than dropping in a modern extruded brick that will never sit right next to a soft handmade one. Mortar is matched on colour, aggregate and joint profile, which is why we look at a clean section of original pointing and never guess from the weathered face. On a large elevation we will do a sample panel first so you can see the match before the whole wall is committed.
Is there a right time of year for lime work?
Yes, and it matters more than people expect. Lime mortar cures slowly by taking carbon dioxide back out of the air, and it has to be kept damp and off the frost while that happens. Frost on green lime mortar wrecks the joint. So the sensible window runs from spring to early autumn, and late-season work gets protected with hessian and sheeting. If you ring us in December about a large repointing job we will tell you to book it for the spring instead of taking your money and risk the work.
Nearby
Working elsewhere in Dorset
Builders in Ferndown
Ten minutes east and a different building stock: 1960s to 1990s bungalows and detached houses in cavity brick, with cement mortar and room to extend at the back or up into the roof.
Ferndown pageAreas we cover
We are based in Bournemouth and travel out from there. Every town we work in is listed on one page, with what is particular about the housing in each.
Builders in Wimborne: all our building work See the full listTrade by trade
Each trade, written for Wimborne Minster
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.
- Roofing in Wimborne Minster
- Flat roofing in Wimborne Minster
- Bricklaying and repointing in Wimborne Minster
- Repointing in Wimborne Minster
- Driveways and patios in Wimborne Minster
- Patios in Wimborne Minster
- Plastering and rendering in Wimborne Minster
- Rendering in Wimborne Minster
- Insulation in Wimborne Minster
- Loft insulation in Wimborne Minster
- Wall insulation in Wimborne Minster
- Exterior cleaning in Wimborne Minster
- Gutter cleaning in Wimborne Minster
- Fascias, soffits and guttering in Wimborne Minster
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Wimborne Minster, Colehill, Pamphill and Stapehill, out towards Corfe Mullen, come under Dorset Council. Merley and Canford Magna are BCP Council, and Canford Magna has its own conservation area, so we check which council covers your address before anything is drawn.
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 Wimborne job himself, so the person who quotes it is the person answerable for it. One visit and one written itemised quote covers the building work, the roof and the finishing trades.
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. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Something urgent? Ring, and if we miss you we call back.
Free quote
Get a price for your Wimborne property
Send a few photographs of the house and what you want built or put right. Thomas comes and looks at it properly before anything is priced.