Roofing in Ashley Heath
Repairs, dry ridge and verge, strip and re-cover, flat roofs, leadwork and rainwater goods across Ashley Heath and the BH24 addresses.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On most Ashley Heath roofs the covering outlasts the mortar that holds its edges down. So before you accept a price for a new roof, get somebody to tell you whether the ridge, the hips and the verges are the actual fault.
Three calls come in more than any other. A ridge tile that rocks when the wind gets under it. A brown ring on a bedroom ceiling after a wet week. A gutter that empties itself over the front door every time it rains properly.
Bungalows are the ordinary house here, and that changes both what we find and what it takes to put right: the roof is wide and low, there is a great deal of edge to it, and the loft runs over the whole house. We get on the roof, put our head through the hatch, and photograph what is genuinely there before anybody talks about money. The survey and the written price are both free.
The work
A hipped bungalow is mostly edge
A hipped bungalow is mostly edge. At 52.2% bungalows, the roofs here carry more metres of edge than any other shape of house, and the edge is where mortar bedding lets go. Hip tiles start to slide, the ridge line opens along its length, and the gable verge drops its bedding onto the drive in lumps. The answer is a dry fix system: every ridge and hip tile screwed to a batten over a ventilated roll, and a dry verge clipped down the gable. That is the mechanical fixing BS 5534 asks for, and it opens an air path at the apex that a bed of mortar closes off.
Underlay, battens and nails. There is no sarking board under a roof of this age, so once a tile lifts the only thing between you and the weather is bitumen felt. It goes brittle and tears where it laps into the gutter, which is the one place it has to be sound. Batten ends and rafter feet get checked from inside, because a nail rusted through will drop a tile on a still day.
Repairs are slipped, cracked and missing tiles, storm damage, and leaks followed back to where water gets in rather than patched where the stain shows. Nearly everything built from the sixties on is concrete interlocking tile, with plain tile and natural slate on the older houses, and most repairs are hours rather than days. When the nails, battens and felt have gone together the covering comes off, soft timber is cut out, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile.
Garages, porches, rear extensions and the strip over a conservatory in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, with the deck looked at before the covering, then the falls, the upstands and the outlet. The abutment where a low garage or extension roof runs into the house wall is the single commonest leak on a bungalow, and it wants code rated lead cut so it can move.
Clearing moss, algae and debris, re-fixing what has dropped and renewing rainwater goods is ordinary work, and capping a rotten timber fascia in uPVC hides the rot rather than stopping it. With the covering off, insulation, eaves ventilation and any condensation problem cost a fraction to sort, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One team throughout, one number to ring, and an itemised written price covering scaffold, strip out, battens and membrane, the covering, each junction and disposal.
There is no conservation area over Ashley Heath and one listed entry in the whole settlement, so for practically every address a like for like re-cover, a repair, new rainwater goods and a flush rooflight are permitted development, with no planning permission and no building control application. Planning Portal guidance sets out where that stops, and it stops at a dormer or a raised roof line. Dorset Council is the authority, and if yours is the listed one, listed building consent applies whatever the work.
Cost
What decides the price of a roof
No rate per square metre: the area is the easiest thing to measure and the least useful thing to know. Plots are open, roofs are low and drives are level, so getting to the work is rarely the biggest line on a quote here. How long the platform stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than an extra.
Chimneys, valleys and abutments are priced one at a time. Ask what grade of lead is going on the chimney, and whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over.
If it is leaking now
Water coming in today
Ring rather than use the form. Anything letting water in goes to the front of the queue, and the first visit makes it safe rather than prices it. On a low roof people get their own ladder out, and it is the fall from a bungalow gutter that puts people in hospital. Leave it. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Bungalow country, and what that does to a roof
More than half the homes here are single storey, and that one fact sits behind most of the quotes we write. Same floor area as a house, roughly twice the roof. The extra tiles matter less than you would think. What matters is that there is far more ridge, hip and verge per household, and the perimeter is where a covering of this age gives up first. So we look at the edges before the middle of a slope, and the honest answer here is more often edge work than a new roof.
The other half of it is what sits above your ceilings. A bungalow roof space runs over every room rather than half of them, so anything done up there lands everywhere at once. If the covering is coming off anyway, that is the moment to bring insulation up to depth, clear the eaves so the air path is not stuffed with wool, and deal with condensation while the access is already paid for.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
About eight miles from us, covering Ashley Heath and the BH24 addresses across the parish of St Leonards and St Ives. Dorset Council for planning and building control. 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.
Questions
Ashley Heath questions we get asked
Over half the houses here are bungalows. Does that help?
It changes the shape of the job. Bungalows are 52.2% of the stock in Ashley Heath, so most roofs here are wide, low and reachable from a modest scaffold, and access is the straightforward part. The work sits at the edges instead, because a spread out single storey roof carries more ridge, hip and verge than a two storey house covering the same rooms. That is where we look first.
On a low Ashley Heath bungalow, what can I check myself?
More than people think. Stand back on the lawn and look along the ridge line: a dip or a gap between ridge tiles means the bedding has gone. Look at the verge for mortar sitting on the flower bed. Look for a tile out of line, and for staining running down from a fixing. All of it is visible from the lawn, without a ladder and without anyone on the roof.
Our house is seventies. Should the mortar ridge be replaced?
Usually with a dry system, yes. The busiest building period in Ashley Heath was the seventies and early eighties, and those roofs were finished with ridge and hip tiles bedded in sand and cement that is now around fifty years old. Bedding cracks, water gets behind it and the tile loosens. A mechanically fixed ridge screws down to a batten and vents the roof at the same time.
Where do the old tiles and battens actually go?
Into a skip on the drive, or a grab lorry if the drive will not take one. Terraced housing is under three per cent of Ashley Heath, so nearly every property has frontage of its own and the waste never has to cross a neighbour. Concrete tiles go for crushing, timber and felt are separated out, and old lead leaves with us. The drive gets swept and magnet swept before the scaffold comes down.
Does the sheltered side of the roof need doing too?
Not always at the same time. The weather here comes off the south west, and driven rain attacks edges and openings rather than the flat middle of a slope, so one elevation can be finished while the opposite side still has years in it. What decides it is the batten and felt underneath. If they have failed across the whole roof, splitting the job only buys a season or two.
Nearby, and next door
Roofing near Ashley Heath
Roofing nearby
Our other trades in Ashley Heath
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Concrete vs clay roof tiles: which is right? Planning, building regs or listed building consent Storm damage to a roof: the first 24 hoursEverything we do in West Moors Roofing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a written price for your Ashley Heath roof
Tell us the street and what the roof is doing. We come out, get on it, and put an itemised price in writing.