Roofing in Sandford

Ridge, hips and verges. Easily the commonest job here, and the age of the streets is why. Three roofs in five went up between 1945 and 1982, most of them in the late sixties and early seventies, so the bedding mortar along the edges is all of one age and it fails as one. It cracks, washes out and lets the tiles rock, and the wind then has something to work at. We strip the old bedding and convert to a dry fix system, dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects, which vents the roof space at the ridge as well. We would talk you out of a re-roof where only the edges are tired, and here that is most of the time.

Repairs and the substrate. Leaks are traced back to where water genuinely enters rather than patched where the stain shows. Nearly everything on these streets is concrete tile and most of it interlocking, laid when the houses were built, with plain tile, clay tile and natural slate on the older properties towards Wareham. On interlocking concrete the tile outlives what holds it down, so the fault is a nail, a clip or a junction. The felt that went on with these roofs is brittle now and tears where it laps into the gutter, the one place it has to be sound, and there is no sarking board underneath, so once the nails have gone the battens and covering move together. Where all three have gone the covering comes off, soft timber is cut out, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile.

The attached garage, the rear extension and the porch go in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, and the deck decides the life of all three. Flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments go in code rated lead cut so it can move without splitting. A good many chimneys on this stock were finished with a mortar fillet instead of a proper flashing, and that fillet is the single most common leak we are called to here. Original timber fascias rot quietly behind a capping board, so we look behind the capping rather than at it, and on ground that shrinks and swells, where rainwater ends up beside a foundation is a structural question rather than only a damp one. With the covering off, insulation and eaves ventilation are far cheaper to put right, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

No rate per square metre. Most houses here have room at the front for a tower, and on a bungalow much of the edge and rainwater work comes off one. On a semi or a terrace the platform may need to stand partly on a neighbour's side, which is worth asking them about before we quote rather than after. Work at height is not optional, and work at height rules are why the platform appears as its own line. Ask any quote whether the scaffold is included, whether the underlay is renewed, and who takes the old covering away.