Roofing in Langton Matravers

Purbeck stone is heavy, and worth keeping. The old roofs in Langton Matravers are Purbeck limestone laid in diminishing courses, biggest stone at the eaves and smallest at the ridge, hung on oak pegs or nails over riven battens with no sarking board and often no underlay at all.

Stone changes the job. The covering is heavy, so before we price anything we look at what is carrying it: rafter feet, purlins and the wall plate. And the stone is worth keeping, so a strip here means every slate coming down, being sorted by size and stacked, then going back on new battens and new fixings with only the broken ones made up. If you have one stone out of place or a single drip by the stack, that smaller job sits on our page for roof repairs in Langton Matravers. Not everything is stone. There is plain tile and clay tile on the cottages, natural slate on the Victorian work, and concrete interlocking tile on the newer houses at the edges of Langton Matravers, where the tile outlives the nail or clip and a repair is a fixing job, not a covering job.

On a roof with no membrane behind the covering water can run a long way down a rafter before it appears, so we work from the loft outwards rather than guessing at the stain. Mortar bedding is the first thing the wind finds: once it cracks the ridge tiles rock and a verge loses its bedding. On the modern tiled roofs we convert to dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. On a stone roof in the conservation area the ridge is re-bedded in a lime rich mortar that matches what was there. A re-roof less than three kilometres from the sea wants stainless steel nails and clips rather than galvanised, because salt takes the fixing long before it touches the covering.

Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments in code rated lead, cut so it can move. Stone and lead sit together well, and most leaks in Langton Matravers start at one of those junctions. Rear extensions, garages and porches in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, deck first, then the falls, upstands and outlet. Rainwater goods take a beating here and the brackets go before the gutter does. Thatch we decline: we do the tiled or stone roof beside it and the leadwork at the junction, and leave the thatch to a master thatcher. Insulation, eaves ventilation and condensation cost a fraction to put right while the covering is off, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof should reach.

A roof here cannot be priced per square metre. The covering, the weather it faces and how materials get on and off the road count for more than the area.

Stone slate or tile. Purbeck stone is heavy and laid in diminishing courses, largest at the eaves. Each slate is taken off, graded and kept, and the shortfall is made up with matching stone that has to be found. A clay or concrete tile roof comes off and goes back far faster.

The sea air and the south west. Langton Matravers sits close to the coast, and its most exposed walls face south west. Salt eats nails and clips from the edges inward, and driven rain works at verges, ridges and flashings. Fixings and lead on that side are specified to BS 5534 for the exposure, which costs a little more and lasts.

Timbers. Rafters that have carried stone for a long time may have sagged, and many older roofs have no underlay at all. New battens and a breathable membrane are routine. Straightening or doubling up rafters is not, so the loft is checked first.

The road. With little room to stand a lorry, stone may need to come in smaller loads, and the scaffold is priced openly under the work at height rules.

Ask another roofer whether the stone is being saved and relaid, what lead goes in at each junction, and whether scaffold, licence and waste are in the price.

Most repairs in Langton Matravers 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.