Roofing in Cranborne

Plain clay tile, relaid rather than replaced. A good deal of what we find in the village centre is small plain clay tile, some of it handmade, hung on nibs and pegs. When those roofs fail it is almost never the tile: it is the nails, the pegs and the batten they hang on. So we strip, sort by hand, set the sound tile aside and re-lay it on new treated battens over a breathable membrane, buying in matched tile only for the shortfall. Sound tile goes back on the elevation facing the street. Natural slate fails the same way: nail sickness lets slates slip one at a time and a roof can lose a dozen in a winter while the slate itself is sound.

Chimneys, valleys and abutments. Old village houses carry tall brick stacks and a lot of roof junction, and that is where nearly every leak we chase begins. Flashings, soakers and back gutters go back in code rated lead, stepped and wedged into the joints rather than smeared over with mastic, and flaunching renewed at the same time. Valleys in plain tile can be swept or laced rather than lined, which looks right and lasts, but it is slow work.

Bonnet hips and clay ridge on the old roofs are bedded and pointed the traditional way. On the newer houses at the edge of the village the covering is concrete interlocking tile, mortar bedding is the usual failure, and a dry fix ridge screwed over a ventilated roll is the better answer, which is also the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. Inside the conservation area we check whether a visible dry verge is acceptable before we specify one. Cast iron rainwater goods are usually worth repairing rather than swapping for plastic, and where a downpipe has been overflowing, the fascia and soffit behind it want looking at too. Clearing leaf debris out of the gutters and algae off a shaded slope is the maintenance that keeps the rest honest. While the covering is off, insulation and eaves ventilation are far cheaper to deal with, with Approved Document L setting the standard a renovated roof must reach.

No rate per square metre. Village frontages are tight and some open straight onto the road, so where the scaffold and the skip can stand is agreed before anything is priced, and a licence from Dorset Council is needed if the platform has to sit on the highway. Some roofs come off a tower, and how long one stands matters as much as its size, which is why the work at height rules make it a priced line. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are priced one at a time. Ask whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over, and who pays for the skip.

Cranborne has its own conservation area, and what that controls is appearance. It does not stop you repairing your roof and it does not make the work harder. What it does is remove the cheap way out. Swapping a slipped clay tile roof for concrete interlocking tile because the concrete is cheaper by the thousand is a change of material and it is not permitted development here, whatever a merchant tells you. Nor is a run of grey rooflights across a front slope.

So the practical advice is this. Ask any quote you receive to name the tile or slate it is pricing, by make and colour, and ask whether it assumes salvaging and re-laying the existing covering or buying new. Two quotes for the same roof here are often two different buildings by the time they are finished.