Roofing in Bryanston

Slate and plain tile repairs. Slipped, cracked and missing tiles, storm damage, and leaks traced back to where water genuinely enters rather than patched at the stain. For a single slipped slate, a lifted hip lead or one leak on its own, see our page on roof repairs in Bryanston. The older brick houses in Bryanston carry natural slate, and on a roof of that age the slate outlives its nails, so slates arrive on the lawn while the covering itself is still sound.

A handful can be re-hung. When they come down across the whole slope the fixings have gone, not the slate. On a strip the covering comes off, soft rafter ends and batten are cut out, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens. Sound slate is sorted and re-laid on the elevation that faces the road, and a clay plain tile is matched to what came off, not to a catalogue. Ridges and hips are screwed down to BS 5534 rather than bedded in mortar. Most of these roofs have no sarking board, so the underlay is doing all of the work.

Parapet and valley gutters. On the older and larger buildings the rainwater never reaches a gutter at the eaves. It runs along a lead lined channel behind a parapet to an outlet, and when that outlet blocks the water goes through the wall head instead. We clear it, find where the lead has split or the fall has gone flat, and re-line the section that needs it. There are a lot of stacks on the older houses in Bryanston and they are where the leaks are: flashings, soakers, valleys and the abutments where a roof runs into a wall, renewed in code rated lead cut into short enough lengths that it can move without splitting, and the flaunching made good at the top.

Alongside the period houses in Bryanston stand post-war terraces and semis. Those terraces and semis carry concrete interlocking tile with mortar bedding at every edge, and mortar is a fixing with a shelf life. We convert to a dry fix system: dry ridge screwed over a ventilated roll, dry verge clipped down the gable.

Rear additions, dormer tops, porches 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 gutters and downpipes are still up on a lot of these houses and are often worth repairing rather than ripping off. Clearing moss, algae and debris is maintenance, and it heads off the rainwater damage that follows. There is thatch on this patch and we say so and leave it alone: we will sort the tiled or slated part of a building that adjoins it, and the leadwork where the two meet. Insulation, eaves ventilation and condensation are far cheaper to deal with while the covering is off, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

We do not work from a rate per square metre. On two houses of the same size in Bryanston, the roofs can be days apart.

Standing the scaffold. Soft verges and estate walls mean the scaffold may need spreader boards, a bridge over a wall or a licence to sit on the lane, and the skip may have to go somewhere awkward. The longer the scaffold is up the more it costs, so the work at height rules put it on the quote in its own right.

The covering going back. Natural slate, handmade clay tiles and concrete interlocking tiles all cost and lay differently. Old slate or clay often has to be matched from salvage, which takes finding. A heavier covering than the roof was built for means checking the rafters first.

Underneath. Some older roofs will have no underlay at all, just slates hung on the battens, or felt gone to dust at the eaves. A quote that renews battens and membrane is a different job from one that lifts and relays the old tiles on the old battens.

Lead. Each chimney, parapet gutter and abutment is priced on its own, because the leadwork is where the time goes and where most leaks begin.

Put these to any other roofer: is the scaffold included, are the battens and membrane new, and who pays for the skip?

Most repairs in Bryanston 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.