Roofing in Lover
Repairs, sorting and re-laying old tile, chimney leadwork, flat roofs and guttering at Lover and across the SP5 lanes.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Lover has old cottages among its post-war houses, and an old roof has to be able to breathe. That single fact decides the underlay, the mortar and whether the old tiles come off to be sorted and re-laid or go in the skip.
Lover is a handful of lanes on the Wiltshire side of the forest, part of Redlynch parish, with old cottages standing next to post-war houses and very little in between. An old roof out here usually gives itself away with water or a survey. Something has come off an old roof and the ceiling underneath it is wet. Or a survey has said the roof is at the end of its life and you want to know whether that is true. If rain is coming through an old cottage ceiling at Lover right now, ring 07435 839745 and let the form wait.
We come out, get on it where it is safe to and off a ladder where it is not, put our head into the loft and photograph the rafters, the battens and the back of the covering. That is where an old roof tells the truth. The site visit and the written quote are both free, however far out you are. Where the trouble is one leak by the stack or a few tiles blown loose, and the rest of the roof is sound, our page on roof repairs in Lover deals with that single fault.
The work
Re-laying is the job nobody offers you
Re-laying is the job nobody offers you. On the old cottages in Lover, much of the covering is still sound. So we strip, sort on the ground, re-lay the best of it on the elevation that faces the lane and put new or reclaimed to the back.
You keep the look of the house and buy a new roof underneath it. The old cottages run to plain tile and clay tile, some of it handmade and cambered, with natural slate on a few, and there is no stone slate in this corner of Wiltshire. The nib or the peg gives out long before the tile does, so a slipped tile is usually a fixing problem, and we keep salvaged tile by size and colour, because matching matters more here than on anything built since.
Most old roofs in Lover have no sarking board and the very oldest had nothing under the battens at all. That roof has been drying itself through the covering for a century. Put a sealed underlay beneath it and the moisture stops where the rafters are, so we use a breathable membrane with a ventilated eaves detail on treated battens, and replace rafter feet that have gone soft instead of sistering over them. On the newer roofs in the village we convert to dry ridge and dry verge on a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. On old soft brick and old tile that is often the wrong answer, and the ridge goes back in a lime mortar bedding that will give a little rather than a cement one that cracks the tile it is meant to hold.
Cottages of this age carry big stacks, and the stack is where the water gets in: flashings, soakers, back gutters, valleys and the abutment where a lean-to meets the wall, all in code rated lead cut short enough to move without splitting, with cracked flaunching at the top a common and easy fix. The outshot, the lean-to and the later garage are felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, with the deck, falls, upstands and outlet checked before anything is priced. Cast iron gutters are worth repairing, not swapping for plastic, and a rotted fascia usually started as an overflowing gutter. Trees close in on these lanes, so clearing moss and debris comes round often. Thatch we decline. While a covering is off, insulation and eaves ventilation are far cheaper to sort, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.
How it runs
A roof job at Lover, from the first call to the last tile
Thomas drives out himself, walks round the house, gets up where it is safe and writes the price. Because Lover is 18.1 miles from our base, he photographs the ridge, verges, valleys and flashings on that first visit and measures up there and then. That way the tiles, lead and battens arrive on the first working day, and you are not waiting on a second trip.
The quote lists scaffold, stripping, battens, underlay or breathable membrane, the tiles or slates, ridge and verge work, lead and the skip as separate figures. The whole roof is on that one quote. Where the lane will not take a scaffold lorry to your door, the tube is dropped short and carried in, and the quote says so. The roof is weathertight every evening, the garden is swept and old tiles go away with us. A rotten rafter or wall plate found under the tiles gets a photo and a price, and waits for your answer.
Lover's planning decisions are made by the New Forest National Park Authority; its building regulations are checked by Wiltshire Council. There is no conservation area. On an unlisted house you can mend the roof, re-cover it in matching tiles, renew the rainwater goods or add rooflights without applying, within the limits in Planning Portal guidance. A dormer is not, on National Park land, and the parish's eight listed entries need consent for any work. Read the National Park heritage guidance before picking a material.
Cost
Lanes, weather and old timbers: what sets a roof price
The scaffold has to get there. On a wide drive a lorry drops the scaffold at the wall. Down a narrow lane or a long gravel track, it may be unloaded short and carried in by hand, and that is a real cost. How long it stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules are why it has a line to itself.
The weather side. Around Lover the most exposed walls and roof slopes face south west, and wind and driven rain attack the edges first: verges, ridges and the bottom courses at the eaves. The fixing schedule in the code of practice for slating and tiling is set by that exposure, so an open roof can need more clips and nails than a sheltered one.
What is under the tiles. An older roof may have no underlay at all, or torn felt and battens that have had decades of damp. Whether battens and membrane are renewed or reused is the biggest gap between two quotes.
Material. Clay tile, slate or concrete, new or reclaimed, all price differently, and inside the National Park the choice for a roof people can see carries more weight.
Lead and chimneys. Each flashing, valley and stack is priced on its own.
Ask any other roofer: are the battens and membrane new? Is the scaffold, and the carry-in, in the figure? Who takes the old tiles away?
If it is leaking now
Water through the roof and a ceiling starting to sag
Ring rather than use the form. First take the pressure off any ceiling that is sagging: a bucket underneath, furniture out of the way, and nobody standing below, because an old lath and plaster ceiling can drop in one heavy sheet.
Switch off the lights in that room if water is near a fitting. Then look outside for a slipped tile, a gap along the ridge or a lifted verge on the weather side. When you ring, say where it is coming in and send a photo if you can, so the right materials come out on the first trip. That visit makes the roof safe and weathertight, and the proper repair is priced afterwards. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody answers, we ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
An old roof has to keep breathing
Some of the cottages at Lover are well over a century old. They were built with solid walls and no damp proof course, and they have stayed dry for well over a century by letting moisture move out through the fabric rather than by sealing it in. The roof is part of that. It is the single largest breathing surface on the house.
So the decisions that look like details are the ones that matter. A sealed bitumen underlay on an old roof pushes the moisture back to the coldest timber in the building. Cement mortar at a ridge or a verge is harder than the tile beside it and cracks it instead of moving with it.
Modern high strength pointing on the stack does the same to soft old brick. On these houses we use a breathable membrane, a properly vented eaves, lime where lime belongs, and salvaged tile matched by size rather than a modern near enough. It is not nostalgia. It is what keeps the timber dry.
Who you are dealing with
The roofer for Lover, Redlynch and Woodfalls
Thomas Hannen owns this firm, and he is the one who makes the 18.1 mile trip from our Boscombe base to price your roof. We cover Lover, Redlynch, Woodfalls and the SP5 addresses on the western edge of the Forest.
For planning you answer to the New Forest National Park Authority, and for building regulations to Wiltshire Council. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and Companies House lists it. One verified customer has scored us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Coming out is free, as is the itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Lover, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Lover?
Most repairs in Lover 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.
| Question | In Lover |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Lover. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Lover, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Lover. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about roofing in Lover
Is Lover in a conservation area or just the National Park?
Only the Park applies. There is no conservation area of its own at Lover and only 8 listed entries in the surrounding area, so most houses here are clear of the heritage controls that catch a village centre. What does apply is the New Forest National Park Authority, which is your planning authority instead of a district council, and which looks closely at anything visible. A like for like re-cover on an unlisted house needs no application to them.
Are the old tiles worth saving on a Victorian cottage?
Often most of them are, and on the older stock here that is the difference between a match and a patchwork. The oldest cottages at Lover carry handmade coverings, and those were made in small batches that nobody produces now. We strip by hand onto the scaffold, sort the sound ones out and put them on the elevation you see from the road, with new material on the back slope.
Why does water get in around the dormer and not the tiles?
Because weather works at the joints. The most exposed elevation at Lover faces south west, and driven rain finds cheeks, flashings, soffit junctions and any opening in a slope long before it beats through a sound covering. A dormer packs four or five separate junctions into a small area, so it is the first thing to leak on an exposed roof. Re-forming those junctions in lead is usually the entire repair, with no need to touch the rest.
Should cast iron gutters be repaired or swapped for plastic?
On a pre-1919 cottage the cast iron is worth keeping wherever the sections are sound. It holds a straight line over a long run better than plastic does, and on the older frontages here it looks right where a white half round does not. The work is de-rusting, re-jointing and painting, plus new brackets where the fascia has moved. Where a section has split right through, a matching cast replacement goes in rather than mixing materials on one run.
Lover is a long way out. What about an emergency leak?
It is 18.1 miles from base, so ring first and we will tell you honestly when we can get there. The first job is making it safe and dry: sheeting the slope, clearing the blockage or dressing a temporary flashing so the ceiling stops taking water. The permanent repair is then booked properly with the right materials on the van. Trying to do both in one visit at this distance usually means doing the second one twice.
Nearby, and next door
Roofing near Lover
Nearby places we also cover for roofing, with straight-line distances from Lover, and the other trades we offer in Lover itself.
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Our other trades in Lover
Roofing guides
Concrete vs clay roof tiles: which is right? Planning, building regs or listed building consent Storm damage to a roof: the first 24 hoursEverything we do in Ringwood Roofing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price for your roof at Lover
Send the postcode and what you have noticed. We come out, look in the loft as well as on the roof, and put an itemised price in writing.