Roofing in New Milton
Repairs, dry ridge and verge, full re-covers, flat and communal roofs and leadwork across BH25. Free site visit and an itemised written quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Ask any roofer quoting in New Milton what grade of nail and clip is going back on. Under two miles from the water, the covering usually outlives the metal holding it down, so the fixing specification matters more here than the tile does.
Most of our calls in the town are one of three things: tiles off a gable after an onshore blow, a flat roof over a garage or a block of flats that has finally given up, or a gutter that has been overflowing quietly for a year. New Milton is largely post-war and 1980s stock, a lot of it terraced and semi detached, with a big share of purpose built flats and bungalows on top of that.
Very little is old and none of the town centre is in a conservation area, so the questions are practical ones rather than heritage ones. We get on the roof, look in the loft where there is a hatch, and photograph what we find. Ten miles from us, and the visit is free.
The work
This close to the sea, the nails go before the tile
Repairs, and the fixings under them. Slipped, cracked and missing tiles, storm damage and leaks traced to where water actually enters. Mostly concrete interlocking tile across the post-war estates, clay plain tile on the inter-war semis, natural slate here and there. What is different less than three kilometres from the sea is why they slip: the nails and clips give up before the tile does. Replacements go back in stainless steel or silicon bronze on the exposed elevations, which is the fixing specification BS 5534 points you at once exposure is taken into account.
Flat roofs, including the communal ones. A quarter of the homes in New Milton are flats, so a good deal of our work here is the roof over a block rather than over a house: built up felt, GRP fibreglass and EPDM rubber on low pitch and flat decks, with parapets, box gutters and outlets that silt up out of sight. The deck gets checked before anything else, then the falls, the upstands and the outlet. Garages, porches and rear extensions are the same job at a smaller scale.
Wind works at the edges of a roof rather than the middle, and with the prevailing weather coming off open ground to the south west, mortar bedding at the ridge and a pointed gable verge are the first things to go. We strip the old mortar and fit a dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, which fixes the edge mechanically and vents the roof space. A third of the housing went up in the 1983 to 2008 stretch, so a good many of those edges are reaching the same age together.
Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and the abutment where a rear extension or a dormer cheek meets a wall, in code rated lead. Lead is one of the few metals that does not mind the air here, which is why it is worth doing properly rather than patching with mastic. When the nails, battens and underlay have gone together, off comes the covering, out comes any soft timber, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile and non-corroding fixings throughout. Salt air keeps a surface damp between showers, so painted steel brackets and old galvanised fittings corrode faster here than inland. With the roof open and the access already paid for, insulation and eaves ventilation cost far less to sort, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach. Bungalow lofts with low eaves need the ventilation path kept clear rather than stuffed full.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team throughout, no sub-contracting, and an itemised quote with scaffold, strip out, battens, membrane, covering, each junction and disposal on separate lines. Most roof work in the town needs nothing. There is no conservation area over the centre and only nine listed entries, so a repair, a like for like re-cover, new rainwater goods and rooflights sit inside householder permitted development within the limits Planning Portal guidance sets out. New Forest District Council for planning and building control, and building control does apply if you renew more than a quarter of a slope. If your address sits inside the National Park boundary we check it on the National Park property map first. Where the roof is over a block, the freeholder instructs the work.
Cost
What decides the price of a roof
No rate per square metre. Terraced streets and blocks of flats are the two access questions here: a mid terrace often means walking a scaffold through or over, and a communal roof needs somewhere to stand it that the managing agent has agreed to. This is work at height and the work at height rules are why the platform is a priced line rather than an optional extra. Chimneys, valleys and abutments are priced one at a time. Ask whether the scaffold is in the price and who pays for the skip.
If it is leaking now
Water coming in today
Ring rather than use the form. Anything letting water in comes first, and the first visit makes it safe. After an onshore blow, look at the gable ends and ridge line from the ground rather than the middle of the roof, and check the drive for broken tile and mortar. If it is a flat above a block, tell us who manages the building, because that decides who authorises the work.
Worth knowing
Salt reaches this far inland
New Milton is under two miles from open water, which is well inside the range that wind driven salt travels. Salt does not damage a clay or concrete tile. What it does is sit on everything metal and hold moisture against it long after the rain has stopped, so the corrosion happens under the tile where nobody looks. Ordinary galvanised nails, mild steel clips, cheap fixing straps and painted gutter brackets all go early, and the roof can read as sound from the ground right up to the morning half a slope moves.
That changes two practical things. First, when a repair is priced here, the fixings should be named: stainless steel or silicon bronze on the exposed elevations, not whatever is in the van. Second, it is worth having the seaward facing slope looked at on its own schedule rather than waiting for a leak, because the failure is in the fixing rather than the covering and you cannot see it. If a quote does not say what the nails and clips are, ask.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Ten miles along the coast road, covering New Milton, Barton on Sea, Ashley, Bashley and the BH25 addresses between them. New Forest District 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.
Questions
New Milton questions we get asked
A third of New Milton is eighties built. What fails on those?
The felt and the mortar, in that order. About a third of the housing here dates from 1983 to 2008, with the 1980s the single biggest decade, so those roofs are now at the age where the underfelt has gone brittle at the eaves and torn. Water then runs behind the gutter with every tile still sitting straight. Re-felting the bottom of the slope and fitting an eaves tray sorts most of it.
We are almost two miles inland. Does salt still reach us?
It does, less than on the front but enough to matter. New Milton is under three kilometres from the coast and the wind that carries the salt comes off the sea from the south west, so it lands on the same slope that takes the driven rain. In practice that means corroded nails and clips on one elevation and sound ones on the other. We test fixings on the seaward side with a bar rather than by eye.
It is a terrace. Can you do just our section?
Usually, and the join is the part that needs handling properly. A quarter of New Milton is terraced so we deal with this often. The covering runs straight across the party wall with no upstand in the middle, which means stripping a short way into the neighbour, forming a proper flashing or soaker line, and tiling back. The neighbour hears about it from us before we start rather than on the morning.
Do we need permission to change the colour of the tiles?
Not in New Milton. There is no conservation area over the town and only nine listed entries, so the colour of the covering is a matter of taste rather than planning, and New Forest District do not want to see a like for like re-cover either. What still applies is building control where a large area is renewed, because that brings in insulation and the condition of the timber underneath.
The flat garage roof blisters every summer. Repair or replace?
Blistering means the old felt has trapped moisture and lost its bond, and a patch over a blister lifts again in the next hot spell. If the deck underneath is still firm underfoot, the answer is to strip back to the boards and lay a single ply or torch on system in one piece. If the boards are soft, they come off as well. We stand on it and tell you which it is.
Nearby, and next door
Roofing near New Milton
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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 New Milton Roofing, all areas Every area we cover
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A written price for your New Milton roof
Tell us the street and what the roof is doing. We look at the whole of it, fixings included, and put a price in writing.