Roofing in Brockenhurst

Much of Brockenhurst predates 1919, and a lot of it went up before 1900. The Victorian and Edwardian houses run natural slate on battens, generally with no sarking board behind, so the whole covering hangs on two nails per slate.

When those nails corrode the slates slip one after another, and re-hooking them with tingles is a holding measure, not a repair. We replace slipped, cracked and missing slate with a matched size, and where a slope has gone past saving we strip it and relay it. Old slate that is sound gets sorted and reused on the elevation facing the road. If you only have one cracked tile, a slipped slate or a single leak to trace, that is covered on our page for roof repairs in Brockenhurst.

Plain clay tile, handmade and machine made peg and nib, sits on the cottages and the tile hung elevations. It is laid to a much steeper pitch than a modern roof and fails at the same places every time: the verge, the valley and the courses immediately under the ridge. The post-war houses on the edge of the village carry concrete interlocking tile, where the covering is usually sound and the mortar bedding, the verge and the underlay are not. Those get ridge and verge screwed down as a dry fix system under BS 5534 rather than re-bedded in mortar that will crack again. The most exposed elevation faces south west, and wind and driven rain work at those edges rather than at the middle of a slope.

Thatch, which we do not touch. There is thatch in and around Brockenhurst and it belongs to a master thatcher. Where a tiled or slated section abuts a thatched one we will do the tiling, the battens and the leadwork up to the junction and leave the thatch alone. Anyone offering to do both is worth a second look.

Under any of it sit the battens, the underlay and the rafter feet. On a roof of this age the felt is either perished or absent, batten ends have softened at the eaves and the wall plate, and the nails have rusted to nothing. A strip and re-cover puts breathable membrane and treated battens back under a matched covering, with soft timber cut out first. Leadwork is where most roofs in Brockenhurst need repair: chimney flashings, soakers, secret and open valleys, and the abutments where a rear addition meets the main slope, all in code rated lead cut into bays so it can move without splitting.

Rear additions, dormer tops and garages come in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, and the deck comes first, then the falls, the upstands and the outlet. Cast iron rainwater goods are common here and often worth repairing rather than replacing. Oak and beech overhang a lot of these roofs, so leaf debris fills the gutter and the valley faster than it would on an open estate, and with the Lymington River yards away and flood zone 3 across the village, where that water goes is not a detail. While the covering is off, insulation, eaves ventilation and any condensation problem are far cheaper to sort, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach. We will talk you out of spray foam every time.

We do not price roofs by the square metre. On an older Brockenhurst roof, what it is covered in and how it was fixed matter far more than its size.

The covering. Natural slate on a Victorian house can often be stripped, sorted and rehung, with new slate to make up the losses, which keeps the roof looking as it should. Clay plain tiles on a cottage are much the same. Swapping either for concrete changes the appearance, and in the National Park that becomes a planning question.

Nails and battens. Many old slate roofs fail because the nails have rusted through, not the slates. If slates are slipping all over, the battens have usually gone too, and it becomes a strip and relay rather than a repair. The fixing standard is BS 5534.

The leadwork. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are priced one at a time. On an older house the lead may be original, and renewing it properly is slow, skilled work.

The site. A tight frontage on the village street, a long gravel drive, or a lane where a lorry cannot turn all change where the scaffold and skip can stand. The work at height rules make the scaffold a priced line.

Ask any other roofer whether the slates are being reused or replaced, whether the battens and membrane are renewed, and whether the scaffold is in the price.

People get this backwards in both directions. It does not stop you repairing your roof. A like for like re-cover on an unlisted house, new rainwater goods, a slipped slate put back, all of it is maintenance and none of it needs an application.

What the designation controls is appearance, so the moment the material changes, slate to concrete tile, clay to something that merely looks like clay, it becomes a matter of judgement and the National Park makes it.

The practical effect is that matching is part of the job, not a nicety. We take a sample off the roof and match size, colour and weathering before ordering, and reclaimed material is often the answer.

One thing catches people out. Every tree in a conservation area is protected: six weeks' written notice to the Authority before cutting one. If the branch shedding leaf into your valley needs taking back, that notice starts well before the scaffold does.

Most repairs in Brockenhurst 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.