Roofing in Milborne St Andrew
Slate and tile repairs, edge work, leadwork and re-covers on the older houses along the village street, priced in writing after a proper survey.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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How much of Milborne St Andrew is listed is what complicates a roof here, so the first thing we settle is which side of that line your address falls. The village also has a conservation area, the Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area, which Dorset Council drew over the heart of the village. On an unlisted house a like for like re-cover needs no application, inside it or outside it, but a change of covering inside it is worth checking with the council first.
A roof in this village is worth a look when a slate or two has come off and the same slope keeps dropping them. A stain is spreading round a chimney or in a valley on a house that has been added to more than once. If that stain has turned into a drip on a Milborne St Andrew cottage, ring 07435 839745 and we will tell you how to protect the room. Or a roof has got to the point where the owner wants an honest answer, not another patch.
We get on the roof, look in the loft, photograph what is up there and price it in writing. On an older village house the survey matters more than usual, because what holds the covering on is rarely what you can see from the ground. The site visit and the written quote are both free.
The work
On a listed roof, dry fix is the wrong answer
A good deal of the older housing in Milborne St Andrew is roofed in natural slate, and slate almost never fails as slate. The nails go first. Once a slope sheds two or three every winter the fixings are rusting through across the whole of it, and hanging another tingle on each one is money after money.
On a listed roof, dry fix is the wrong answer. Mortar bedding cracks, washes out and lets the tiles rock. On an ordinary house we convert to dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. With 25 listed entries in Milborne St Andrew that is often the wrong answer here, so on a listed building we re-bed in a mortar that suits the fabric rather than a hard modern mix that takes the tile with it next time.
Alongside the slate there is plain tile, clay tile on the older ranges, and concrete tile on the later houses, where the fault is usually a nail or a clip and the tile is fine. Stone slate belongs to Purbeck, not this valley. Several of the older cottages are thatched and we do not work on thatch. Where a tiled range adjoins one we work on our side, and that flashing is nearly always the leak.
Older roofs in Milborne St Andrew sit on lath, or on battens with no underlay at all, or on a felt long since perished, and when nails, battens and underlay have gone together the new roof goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with soft rafter feet cut out first. We would talk you out of a re-roof where the covering has life left and only the edges need doing. If you have one slipped slate, a cracked tile or a single leak to deal with, our page on roof repairs in Milborne St Andrew covers that work. Chimney flashings, soakers and valleys in code rated lead. Cast iron rainwater goods here are worth repairing rather than swapping for plastic, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.
How it runs
How a re-roof is run, from the first look to the ridge
Thomas comes out and looks at the roof himself: from the road, from the garden and from inside the loft, where the state of the battens and whatever passes for underlay tells him more than the tiles do. His written quote then puts each part on its own line: the scaffold, the strip out, new battens and breathable membrane, the covering, every chimney, valley and abutment with its lead flashing, and disposal. All of it sits on that price.
Plenty of the older houses on the A354 through Milborne St Andrew sit tight to the road with no side way, so the scaffold either stands on the footway, which needs a licence from the council, or goes up from the back garden. Thomas settles which at the visit. The roof is made weathertight at the end of each day, the site is swept, and the old tiles and timber leave with us. If stripping uncovers rotten rafter feet or a failed valley board, he photographs it and prices it, and nothing extra happens until you say yes.
The village has its own conservation area, the Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area, which Dorset Council drew over the heart of the village. Inside it, a like for like repair is fine, but a change of covering is worth checking first. Elsewhere, on an unlisted house a re-cover, new rainwater goods and rooflights sit inside householder permitted development, with nothing more than 150mm proud of the roof plane, as Planning Portal guidance explains. A listed building needs listed building consent whatever the work.
Cost
What moves the price of a pitched roof out here
A pitched roof in Milborne St Andrew has no rate per square metre. Two roofs of the same size in this village can come out very differently, and most of the reasons cannot be seen from the road.
Where the scaffold can stand. A cottage on Blandford Hill that fronts straight onto the pavement needs a platform standing over the footway or the highway, and that needs the council's licence, which is a lead time as well as a line on the quote. A detached house with a drive and a garden round it is simpler. The work at height rules are why the platform is priced on its own line and not tucked into a rate.
What the roof is made of. An old house in the conservation area may carry clay tiles or natural slate that has to be matched, and good second hand or handmade material takes longer to find than a modern interlocking concrete tile.
What sits under the tiles. Older roofs often have no underlay at all, or felt gone brittle, and battens rotted where water has sat. Rafters that have spread under a heavy covering, or a wall plate gone soft, add days. That is what Thomas is looking for in the loft before he writes a figure.
The awkward bits. Each chimney, valley and abutment is priced one at a time, because that is where the lead work is and where most leaks start.
Check any other roofer's price on the points that move it. Does the price include the scaffold and any footway licence? Does it include new battens and membrane, or only new tiles? Who pays for the skip?
If it is leaking now
Tiles off, or a drip through the bedroom ceiling
If water is coming in, put a bucket under it and move anything electrical. If a ceiling is bulging, pierce it once at the lowest point so it drains into the bucket rather than coming down, and keep the loft light off if water is near the wiring.
Do not climb a ladder in wind. Then phone us rather than filling in the form. Booked roofing runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, but a leak is worth a call, and if nobody answers we will ring you back as soon as we can. Making the roof safe comes first: slipped tiles refixed, a sheet over any open area, and the flashings checked to find where the water is really getting in.
Worth knowing
A re-roof is simple here. A loft conversion is not
The one thing worth knowing before you plan work on this roof is that Milborne St Andrew drains into the Poole Harbour catchment, and that catchment is under nutrient neutrality rules. They bite on schemes that add new homes or separate units, so they do not touch a re-cover, a repair, a flat roof or new rainwater goods at all.
An ordinary loft room usually is not caught, but ask Dorset Council if yours would be a separate unit. If a conversion is anywhere in your thinking, say so at the survey. It changes what we do now more than what you pay: rafters, membrane and eaves ventilation can be set up while the covering is off, so the conversion is not undoing work you have just paid for. Any planning side takes far longer than the roof does, and the roof is the part you can get on with meanwhile.
Who you are dealing with
Who comes out to look at your roof
Milborne St Andrew is about 20 miles from our base in Boscombe, out on the A354 between Blandford and Puddletown, and we cover the village, Milborne Stileham and the DT11 addresses around them. Dorset Council deals with planning, listed building consent and building control here.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it, and he is the person who climbs up, looks at your roof and prices it himself. On Checkatrade, a verified customer gave us 10 out of 10. The site visit costs nothing, and neither does the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Milborne St Andrew, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Milborne St Andrew?
Most repairs in Milborne St Andrew 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 Milborne St Andrew |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Milborne St Andrew. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Milborne St Andrew. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Milborne St Andrew. |
Questions
Questions about roofing in Milborne St Andrew
Does the nutrient rule apply if we add a bedroom?
Not usually. Milborne St Andrew drains into the Poole Harbour catchment, and the nutrient rule there bites on new dwellings and self-contained annexes, not an ordinary loft room in the house you already live in. Re-covering an existing roof is not caught by it at all. If the room would be a separate unit, check with Dorset Council early, because the roof work is the quick part and any consent is not.
There are 25 listed entries here. Does ours count?
Only the address on the list counts, though being physically attached to one can pull you in. The 25 entries at Milborne St Andrew include the Parish Church of Saint Andrew. Separately, the heart of the village is a conservation area, so an ordinary house there is not listed but its roof is still watched more closely: a repair in matching materials is fine, while a new covering or a change to how the roof looks can need Dorset Council's say first. Where a property is listed, consent from Dorset Council comes before a single tile is moved, not afterwards.
Is a small repair worth your while at this distance?
It is if we can see the whole roof in one trip. You are about twenty miles out from us, so we come once instead of driving back for each item, look at everything from the ridge to the gully, and put the lot on a single quote. An old village roof usually has three or four small things wrong with it, not just the one that prompted the phone call.
Can this wait until spring, or does it need doing now?
It depends what is open. A missing tile with sound felt underneath will see the winter out. A torn valley, an open ridge or bare battens will not, because the water gets into the timber and then it is rafters as well as tiles. We will tell you plainly which of the two you have, and sheet it over in the meantime if it needs holding until the weather turns.
Should the valley be lead, or something more modern?
On an older village property we would keep lead, cut and lapped in short lengths so that it can move. The fibreglass and GRP linings go in quicker, but they sit wider and flatter and they show, which matters on a building standing in a row of older ones. Lead that has split has usually split because somebody laid it in one long piece and left it nowhere to expand to.
Nearby, and next door
Roofing near Milborne St Andrew
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Get a straight answer on your Milborne St Andrew roof
A free site visit, a look in the loft as well as on the covering, and an itemised written quote you can hold up against anyone else's.