Roofing in Blandford Forum

On a terrace the leak is usually the party wall. Terraces are 31.1% of the housing in Blandford Forum, and on a terrace the leak is very often at the party wall: the abutment where your slope meets next door's, or the valley behind a back addition.

That is leadwork, not tiling, which is worth knowing before you pay somebody to re-bed a ridge that was never the problem. Repairs are slipped, cracked and missing tiles, storm damage, and leaks traced back to where water genuinely enters rather than patched where the stain shows.

Slate and plain clay tile. Close to one house in five in Blandford Forum predates 1919, and those roofs are natural slate or plain clay tile on battens, often with old lime torching crumbling out underneath. Slate itself rarely wears out; the nails rust through first, so you get a run of slipped slates across one course. One slate comes back on a tingle. Once a slope has gone the roof wants stripping and re-laying, sound slates sorted and matched second hand ones making up the shortfall. There is no stone slate on the ordinary housing here.

Well over a third of Blandford Forum went up between 1945 and 1982, mostly concrete interlocking tile, and the tile outlives what holds it down. What finishes these roofs is nail fatigue, soft batten ends and underlay that tears as soon as you touch it. The covering comes off, soft rafter feet are replaced, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile. If what you have is one slipped tile, a split in the garage felt or a drip you want traced, that is covered on our page for roof repairs in Blandford Forum. Where the mortar bedding has cracked and the tiles are starting to rock, we convert to dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects, which ventilates the roof space along the ridge at the same time.

Back additions, dormers, garages and porches in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, all of which last when the deck is sound and the falls, upstands and outlet are right, so we look at the deck first. Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments go back in code rated lead, cut short enough to move without splitting. Older properties also carry lead lined parapet gutters, hidden from the ground and the most expensive thing here to ignore.

A fair share of apparent roof leaks turn out to be a gutter running over or a downpipe discharging into nothing. On a terrace the gutter runs continuously across several houses, so a blockage two doors along is your wet wall. North facing slopes hold the moss and algae that wash down and pack it, and clearing that debris heads off the rotted fascia below.

With the covering off, insulation, eaves ventilation and any condensation problem are far cheaper to sort while the access is already paid for, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

A roof in this town is not priced by the square metre, because the same area can mean three very different jobs.

Scaffold and the street. A terrace in the Georgian centre needs its scaffold on the footway with a highway licence, and often a skip permit on top. An estate semi takes a scaffold up the side on its own land. The work at height rules set what goes up, and the weeks it stands are part of what you pay for.

Age of the roof. Much of the town's housing went up in the 1970s and the years just after, and those concrete tile roofs are now at the point where the battens, felt and nails are spent even though the tiles look sound. In the centre, clay tile and slate cost more to match.

Blocks of flats. Plenty of homes in Blandford Forum are flats. The freeholder instructs roof work on a block, and a section 20 consultation with leaseholders has to happen before major costs are recharged, which affects when the job can start.

Leadwork. Each stack, party wall parapet, valley and abutment is priced on its own, since that is where the hours go.

Ask these of any rival quote. Does it include the scaffold licence? Are the battens and membrane new? How many stacks and valleys has it counted?

Two hundred and nine entries in the parish are listed, and the Georgian centre sits inside the Blandford Forum and Approaches Conservation Area, and the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston one covers the land across the Stour. Both are misunderstood in the same direction: people assume they cannot touch the roof, then find out afterwards that they could have.

What a conservation area controls is appearance. Repairing a slate roof with slate, or a plain tile roof with plain tile, is maintenance, needs no application, and is what we would be recommending anyway. What cannot happen quietly is a change of material, so it is the slate roof coming back in concrete tile because that quote was cheaper that gets stopped.

A listed building is stricter again, and consent there covers the work itself, repairs included. Send us the address first. We check it against listed building consent before pricing, and where the covering is controlled we price the matched material rather than a cheaper roof you cannot have.

Blandford Forum sits 16.8 miles up the Stour valley from our base in Boscombe, reached on the A350. Roofing work takes us through the town, Blandford St Mary, Bryanston, Pimperne and the DT11 addresses around them, and Dorset Council is the council for planning and building control.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and Companies House lists it. Thomas Hannen owns the firm and is the person who climbs up to see your roof and puts the price on it, with no salesman involved. Checkatrade shows a 10 out of 10 from a verified customer. Visiting costs you nothing, and the written quote, itemised in full, is free too. Before you book a visit in Blandford Forum, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Blandford Forum 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.