Roofing in Iwerne Minster

A plastic verge on a cottage looks like what it is. Two in five dwellings here predate 1919, so the ridge and verge question gets answered twice. On the post-war houses off the main street the concrete interlocking tile roofs get a dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. On a plain tile roof in the conservation area we bed and point in mortar instead, because a plastic dry verge on a cottage of that age looks exactly like what it is. Two details, and we tell you which yours wants. On a nail sick hand made clay plain tile roof the tiles are often better than anything you can buy new: the pegs or nails have gone, not the clay. We lift, sort and put the sound ones back on the elevation that faces the road, and buy in reclaimed tile to make up the shortfall.

Under an old Dorset tile roof there is usually no sarking board and often no underlay at all, just riven battens over open rafters. A relay puts breathable membrane in for the first time, and that has a consequence worth knowing: a roof that used to breathe through every gap now needs eaves ventilation designing into it, or you swap a leak for condensation. Soft rafter feet and batten ends come out at the same time. Old roofs here carry swept and laced valleys in plain tile as well as open lead lined ones, and the two are repaired completely differently. Chimney flashings, soakers and the abutment where a rear addition meets the wall go back in code rated lead, stepped into a raked joint rather than smeared over the brickwork with mastic, and tall chimneys want the flaunching looking at while the access is there.

Thatch, which we do not do. There is thatch in this village and we are not thatchers, so we say so on the phone rather than after we have taken your deposit. Where a cottage is part tiled and part thatched we will look at the tiled half, but the junction is a job to plan with your thatcher, and nobody does hot work within reach of a thatched roof, including a neighbour's. A lot of cast iron rainwater goods survive here and a cracked gutter or downpipe section can be replaced, so it is usually worth repairing rather than ripping off, and the fascia and soffit behind a run that has been overflowing want checking while the access is up. Clearing the leaf debris out each autumn, and the algae off a shaded slope, saves the repair it would otherwise turn into. With the covering off, insulation and eaves ventilation cost far less to deal with, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach. On a solid walled cottage the ventilation matters more than the thickness of the insulation.

Village frontages here are tight, the lanes are narrow, and a scaffold that has to stand partly on a road or a verge needs arranging rather than assuming. How long it stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why the platform is a line of its own rather than an optional extra. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are counted one at a time, because that is where the leadwork hours go. Ask whether the scaffold is in the quote, whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over, and who takes the old tiles away.