Roofing in Owermoigne

Leadwork. Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments in code rated lead. The older roofs here carry lead lined valleys between ranges of different heights, and those are the leaks that get blamed on the tiles for years.

Ridge, hip and verge. Plots out here sit in the open, and wind works at the edges of a roof rather than the middle, so mortar bedding cracks and a verge loses its bedding while the field of the roof is still sound. We convert to dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects.

Newer houses here are concrete interlocking tile, and that tile outlasts the nails and clips beneath it, so what has failed is a fixing or a junction. The older cottages are plain clay tile or natural slate laid straight on battens. Purbeck stone slate appears on the oldest buildings in this part of Dorset, a specialist covering with its own sizing and fixing. Some roofs here are thatched, some half thatched with a tiled rear addition. We are not thatchers: we take on the tiled part and the junction between the two, which is a leadwork detail and is where those roofs usually let water in.

Nails rusted away, batten ends turned soft and underlay that tears in your fingers are what actually end a roof, and once all three have arrived the slope is relaid over breathable membrane on treated battens in a matched tile or slate, with wet timber cut out. A good number of the leaks we attend are a gutter spilling over the back or a downpipe emptying into thin air, and on ground that shrinks and swells that matters beside a wall. With the roof open, insulation and eaves ventilation cost less to put right than they ever will afterwards, and Approved Document L is the standard a renovated roof is expected to meet.

No rate per square metre. Owermoigne is twenty miles out and the lanes are narrow with soft verges, so where the lorry unloads and where the platform stands get settled before the day rather than on it. Most plots have room around them, which is the easy part. 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 who pays for the skip.

The ground around the village is cohesive and it shrinks and swells with how wet it is. That turns a rainwater problem into a structural one, and it is the reason a roof job here is not finished at the gutter.

A downpipe that empties at the base of a wall, a gully that has silted up, or a soakaway that never worked puts a lot of water into ground that changes volume with it, season after season. You see it as cracked render, a sticking door or a wet patch inside, and the roofer gets blamed for a leak that is nothing to do with the covering. Approved Document H is the standard for taking that water away properly, and what it wants is a positive outfall rather than a hole in the ground that happens to be out of sight.

So when we price a roof here we price the rainwater goods and where they discharge as part of it, and we will tell you if the real fault is at the bottom of the downpipe rather than the top.

About twenty miles west of us, covering Owermoigne and the DT2 addresses between Dorchester and Wool, 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.