Roofing in Bransgore

Cement fillets are the commonest thing we take off. Somebody ran mortar where lead belongs, it cracked inside two winters, and water has been going in behind it ever since. The abutment where an extension roof runs into a wall, the valley between two pitches, the soaker course along a lean-to and the flashing round a chimney all go back in code rated lead, cut so it can move without splitting.

Ridge, hips and verges. Two houses in five here are detached, and a detached roof has a lot of outside for its footprint, all of it originally bedded in mortar. Once the bedding cracks the tiles start to move and a gale finds them. We take it off and lay a dry fix system instead, dry ridge and dry verge screwed to a vented roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 asks for, measured by the metre of edge.

Post-war Bransgore is concrete tile, nearly all of it interlocking, and half the parish went up between 1945 and 1982. The cottages on the lanes are plain tile, clay tile and natural slate on battens over felt with no sarking board behind. Where a cottage is thatched we leave that to a thatcher and take on the tiled wing and the lead between the two. We follow a leak back to the point water is getting in rather than sealing the spot where the stain appeared, and on a roof this size the two are often metres apart.

Rusted nails, soft batten ends and an underlay that tears when you touch it arrive together, and once they have there is no repair worth buying. The lot comes off, wet timber is cut out, and the roof goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile. Ask for the re-roof figure alongside the repair figure and decide from the pair.

Long elevations with two downpipes between them mean one blockage floods the whole run, and it comes over the front of the gutter onto the fascia rather than out of the end. We check where the foot of the downpipe goes as well as what falls in at the top, because this ground shrinks and swells with the seasons. With the covering off, insulation depth and eaves ventilation are the cheapest they will ever be, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

No rate per square metre: the area is the easiest thing to measure and the least useful thing to know. Plots here are generous, there is a drive almost everywhere, and a scaffold lorry can get to the house and turn round again. How long it 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, because that is where the leadwork hours go. Ask whether the scaffold is in the price and whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over.

The ground under Bransgore is cohesive, and it shrinks and swells with the seasons. It gives up water through a dry summer and takes it back through the winter, and it changes volume while it does it. That turns one ordinary bit of roofing into a structural question: where the foot of your downpipe actually discharges.

Into a gully connected to a drain is fine. Onto a soakaway close to the wall, or straight onto the ground beside it, feeds everything landing on half a roof into the soil next to a foundation that is already moving with the weather. On cohesive ground a soakaway will often fail its percolation test anyway, which is why Approved Document H asks for a positive outfall where the ground will not take it. Get the outfall wrong and new rainwater goods only deliver the same water to the same place faster.

About eight miles from us, covering Bransgore, Thorney Hill, Sopley and the BH23 addresses out towards Hinton, with New Forest District 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.