Roofing in Bournemouth

Most repairs are hours, not days. Slipped, cracked and missing tiles, a ridge tile that rocks, a verge that has lost its bedding, storm damage, and leaks traced back to where water is genuinely entering rather than patched where the stain shows. Whether the covering is concrete interlocking tile, plain clay tile or natural slate, the fault is usually a fixing or a junction rather than the tile itself.

Salt matters at under three kilometres from the water. It goes for the metal rather than the covering, so nails and clips corrode from the outside in and a roof can look sound while what holds it down has gone. Stainless steel or silicon bronze on the seaward slopes, and it says so on the quote.

New roofs and re-covering. When the nails, battens and underlay have gone together, patching stops being worth it. The covering comes off, soft timber is replaced, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile. Ridges and hips are screwed down rather than bedded in mortar, which is what BS 5534 expects and removes the detail that cracks first. A straightforward semi is three to five working days once the scaffold is up.

A fifth of the stock here is inter-war, and those roofs are plain clay tile or natural slate on battens, where the slate outlives its own nails and slips a course at a time. Flat roofs turn up over rear extensions, garages, dormers, porches and the small roofs above bay windows, in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, and the deck gets looked at before the covering.

Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments go back in code rated lead, cut so it can move without splitting, because most leaks start at a junction. A fair share of what is reported as a roof leak is a gutter running over or a downpipe discharging into thin air, and clearing moss and debris heads off the rotted fascia below.

The 1980s estates are the other half of the diary, where the tiles are sound and the mortar bedding at the ridge and verge is what has let go. With the covering off, insulation, eaves ventilation and any condensation problem are far cheaper to sort, and insulating without keeping the eaves clear only moves the damp somewhere else.

No rate per square metre: the area is the easiest thing to measure and the least useful thing to know. A terrace with a shared alley, a semi with a driveway and a third floor flat over a shop are three different jobs before a tile moves. 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, whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over, and who pays for the skip.

There are a lot of flats and converted houses around Charminster and Winton, and on a flat the roof belongs to the freeholder and is managed out of the service charge. So if you are a leaseholder with a stain on a top floor ceiling, the quickest route is finding out who manages the block, not booking a roofer. We will still look and put what the roof needs in writing so you have something to send them.

If you sit on the residents' company, one thing is worth knowing early: where the work would cost any single leaseholder more than £250, the leaseholders have to be formally consulted first, under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. That moves the timetable rather than the roof, and it is easier arranged in spring than in November.