Roofing in Longham

Every hip is a run of mortar sat in the weather. Far and away the commonest job here. More than a third of the dwellings are bungalows, which means the same floor area with roughly twice the roof and far more ridge, hip and verge per house, and every one of those runs is mortar bedding that has sat in the weather since the house went up. Once it cracks the tiles start to move and you find the mortar on the path. We take the old bedding off and refit ridge, hips and verges dry, screwed down over a ventilated roll. That is the mechanical fixing BS 5534 asks for, it opens a ventilation path along the ridge, and there is nothing left to re-bed later. Six in ten dwellings went up between 1945 and 1982, most in the late sixties and early seventies, so nearly everything here is concrete tile, most of it interlocking.

Interlocking concrete outlasts the nails and clips holding it down, so what has failed is a fixing or a junction, not the tile. Rusted nails, batten ends gone soft and underlay that comes apart in your hand are the three things that finish a roof, and together they make patching money thrown away: the covering comes off, rotten rafter feet are cut out, and the slope is relaid over breathable membrane on treated battens in a tile matched to the street. On these roofs you are more often not there yet, and we say so. Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments go in code rated lead, and on this stock the usual leak is the valley between two hips or where an extension meets the original roof.

Where the water goes. More of the roof leaks we get called to are guttering than tiling: a run overflowing at the back, or a downpipe emptying onto nothing. Where that water finishes up matters here, because the ground is cohesive and changes volume with how wet it is, so a downpipe discharging beside a wall is a structural question and not simply a damp one. Approved Document H is the standard for taking it away properly. The attached garage, rear extension and porch are felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, and on a single storey house the flat roof runs into the main slope rather than up a wall, which is where they give up, so the deck and that junction come first. With the slope open and the platform already paid for, insulation and eaves ventilation cost a fraction of the same work as its own visit, and Approved Document L is the standard a renovated roof must meet.

Longham is one of the easier places we work. Plots are detached with side access and room to stand a platform, and a good share of the housing is single storey, so the scaffold is smaller and edge and rainwater work often comes off a tower instead. 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. Ask whether the scaffold is in the quote, whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over, and who takes the old tiles away.

Six in ten homes in Longham were built between 1945 and 1982, and the peak was the late 1960s and early 1970s. That is one cohort of roofs, laid to the same detail, within a few years of each other, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you spend anything.

Two things follow from it. The first is that they reach the end of their bedding mortar together, which is why scaffolds appear along one road in the same couple of summers and why your neighbour's roof is a fair preview of yours. The second is that what has gone is almost always the mortar at the edges, not the tile.

So when someone quotes you a full re-cover on a roof that is dropping mortar, ask them what they found in the loft. If the battens are sound and the underlay is not tearing, dry fixing the ridge, hips and verges is the job, and it costs a fraction of a re-cover because it needs a fraction of the work.

Under five miles from us, covering Longham, Hampreston and the BH22 addresses either side of the Stour towards Ferndown and West Parley, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.