Roofing in Cranborne

Plain clay tile, relaid rather than replaced. A good deal of the roofing 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 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 Cranborne 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.

A roof on the Chase is not priced off its floor area. Access, what comes off and the junctions move the figure far more. Where the scaffold can go. A cottage whose front wall meets the pavement needs a footway licence and a scaffold people can still walk under.

A house back from the lane in its own plot might take a tower at one end. The longer the platform stays, the more it costs to hire, and the work at height rules decide what it has to be, so it has its own line.

What comes off, and what goes back. Old handmade clay tiles are worth saving. They come off by hand, get sorted and stacked, and the good ones are relaid with new ones blended in. That is slower than a roof of new concrete tiles, and on a listed building it is often what consent asks for. Natural slate is similar.

The junctions. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are where the lead goes and where the hours go, so each has its own figure. After decades of patching, the battens are often past it and some rafters need splicing, which only shows once the tiles are off.

Put another roofer's quote beside ours and check that the battens and membrane are renewed, not covered over, that scaffold and any footway licence are included, and that the skip is accounted for.

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.

Most repairs in Cranborne 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.