Roofing in Bere Regis
Repairs, dry ridge and verge, re-covers, flat roofs, leadwork and gutter work across Bere Regis and the BH20 villages. Same team throughout, and nothing left open overnight.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Almost every Bere Regis roof we are called to can be repaired rather than replaced, and the covering is usually the last thing at fault. The one check people here miss is where the downpipes finish, because this ground moves when it gets wet.
Three calls come out of the village more often than any others. A tile has come off in a gale and there is one on the lawn. A brown ring has appeared on a bedroom ceiling, nearly always under a chimney or where an extension runs into the old roof. Or nobody has touched the roof since it was built and you want a straight answer on whether it has years left in it.
We come out, survey it properly, put our head into the loft and photograph what is actually there. Then you are told which of the three you have: a repair that will hold, edge work that buys you years, or a covering that has finished. The site visit and the written itemised quote are both free.
The work
The covering is usually the last thing at fault
The covering is usually the last thing at fault. A slipped or cracked tile, a missing one after a gale, storm damage, and leak tracing: we find the point of entry instead of dressing the ceiling stain. The village carries three coverings. Plain tile in clay on the old cottages, natural slate where the Victorians added on, and concrete interlocking tile across everything built since the war. Stone slate is a Purbeck covering from further south and hardly appears here. Interlocking concrete tends to outlast its own nail or clip, so what has failed is a fixing or a junction.
Thatch, and what we will not take on. There is thatch in Bere Regis and we do not touch it. What we will take on is the tiled or slated roof next to it: the soakers and flashing where a tiled extension runs into a thatched main roof, and the rainwater goods underneath. For the thatch itself, a master thatcher.
Mortar bedding is the detail that gives out first on nearly every roof here. Once it cracks the ridge tiles start to rock and the verge loses its bedding, so we strip the mortar off and fit dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. When the nails corrode, the batten ends soften and the underlay parts under your thumb, everything comes off and the roof goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile.
Flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments go in code rated lead sized so the sheet can expand without tearing, because very little water gets in through the middle of a slope. A downpipe that empties beside a wall rather than into a gully is a genuine problem on ground that shrinks and swells. With the covering off, insulation and eaves ventilation cost a fraction of the usual, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is meant to reach.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One team from first visit to last, and the quote is itemised: scaffold, strip out, battens and membrane, the covering, each junction and disposal on separate lines.
There is no conservation area over Bere Regis, so on an unlisted house a repair, a like for like re-cover, new rainwater goods and a rooflight all run under ordinary householder permitted development, inside the limits Planning Portal guidance sets out and with nothing standing more than 150mm above the roof plane. The parish does carry forty three listed entries, the church among them, and there listed building consent is needed whatever the work, so the first thing we check is the address. Dorset Council for both.
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. Bere Regis is a village of frontages. Plenty of houses sit straight onto the lane with no side way in, so a platform has to come through the house or stand on the footway.
How long the platform stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are priced one at a time. Ask whether the scaffold is in the price and who pays for the skip.
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. If the stain sits near a chimney breast or under a valley, photograph the ceiling and put a bucket under it. That photograph tells us more than the call does. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Where your downpipes finish matters here
The ground under Bere Regis is cohesive and it shrinks and swells with the weather. It takes up water through the winter and gives it back in a dry summer, and it changes volume doing it. That turns roof drainage into a structural question rather than only a damp one, which is not true everywhere we work.
So we look harder at rainwater goods here than the job appears to deserve. Every downpipe wants to finish in a gully with a positive outfall to a drain, not on a splash block beside a wall and not into a soakaway sitting next to a foundation. A gutter that runs over on the same corner every winter is soaking one patch of ground and drying it out again every summer, year after year. Approved Document H covers where that water is meant to go.
The practical version: when the gutters are cleared, have the gullies below them rodded at the same time. It is the cheaper half of the job and the half that usually gets left.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
About fifteen miles from us, covering Bere Regis and the BH20 addresses out towards Wareham and Winterborne Kingston, with 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
Bere Regis questions we get asked
There is no conservation area, but plenty of listed houses. Why?
Because the two are separate systems. Bere Regis has no conservation area of its own, yet there are forty three listed entries in the parish, from the church of St John the Baptist outwards. If your building is on that list, consent is needed for work that changes character even though the village as a whole is not designated. If it is not, ordinary permitted development applies to the roof.
What does a roofer look for on an old village house?
Where the covering meets something else. On the older buildings around Bere Regis the failures are almost never in the middle of a slope: they are at a chimney, a valley, a lead abutment against a raised gable, or a verge where the bedding has washed out. We check the loft for daylight and for rafter ends that have been wet against a wall plate, then work outward to the flashings.
Our loft conversion has stalled over Poole Harbour. Why?
Nutrient neutrality. Bere Regis drains into the Poole Harbour catchment, and any scheme that adds overnight accommodation has to show it is not adding nutrient load before Dorset Council can grant consent. A bedroom in the roof counts. Nothing about re-covering, repairing, insulating or renewing gutters engages it, which is why a re-roof goes ahead while the conversion drawings sit waiting.
Which elevation takes the beating out here?
The one looking south west. Open country around Bere Regis leaves the exposed face with nothing to slow the wind, and driven rain finds edges and openings rather than the body of a slope, so verges, ridge ends and anything abutting a wall on that side go first. When someone tells us the leak only happens in a storm and not in steady rain, that is the elevation we start on.
Where does the water off the roof end up here?
That is worth knowing before we touch the gutters. The ground through Bere Regis is cohesive and rated for shrink and swell, so rainwater discharged beside a wall works on the foundation as well as the wall. If a downpipe runs to a soakaway too near the building, or into a gully that has silted up, we would rather sort that while the scaffold is standing than come back for it.
Nearby, and next door
Roofing near Bere Regis
Roofing nearby
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Get your Bere Regis roof priced properly
A free site visit and a written itemised quote you can compare line by line. Send the postcode and what you have noticed.