Roofing in Tarrant Monkton

The tiled half, and the lead at the junction. Thatched roofs are part of the village, and a good many have a tiled rear addition or a brick chimney rising through. We are not thatchers and will not pretend to be. What we take on is the tiled or slated part and the leadwork at the junction between the two, which is where those roofs almost always let water in, and we say that on the first visit rather than after a scaffold has gone up. Leadwork is the bulk of the repair work in a village like this: chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and the abutments where one range meets another, in code rated lead cut short enough to move without splitting. A valley between two ranges of different heights is the leak that gets blamed on the tiles for years.

Repairs and re-covering. The cottages here are plain clay tile or natural slate laid straight on battens, with later houses in concrete interlocking tile. On an old clay or slate roof the covering usually outlasts its fixings, so a run of slipped units across one course is a nail problem, not a tile problem. Where mortar bedding has cracked, a dry fix system with dry ridge and dry verge units screwed onto a ventilated roll is the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects, but on a prominent slope in the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area the appearance of that detail matters, so we choose the system that keeps the look rather than screwing a white plastic verge onto a clay tile roof and hoping. On a re-cover, sound clay tiles and slates are sorted and re-used, with matched second hand units making up the shortfall, which is what the conservation area expects. Trees along the valley fill the gutters every autumn, so clearing that debris out, and the algae off a slope that never dries, is annual work. Where a downpipe or a rainwater head overflows the soffit goes soft before anything shows inside. Insulation, and the eaves ventilation that stops it turning into condensation, cost far less with the covering off, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

No rate per square metre. Fourteen miles out along the valley, down lanes with no pavement and a village street where a lorry has nowhere to sit, so unloading and where the platform stands are settled before the day rather than on it. Work at height is not optional, and work at height rules are why the platform appears as its own line. Comparing quotes, ask whether the scaffold is in the price, whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over, and who pays for the skip.

Twenty seven entries in this parish are listed and the whole village lies inside the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area, with the Cranborne Chase National Landscape around it. In a place this small that means the odds your address is affected are high, and it is worth knowing before you compare two quotes rather than afterwards.

What a conservation area controls is appearance. Repairing a clay tile roof with clay tile, or a slate roof with slate, is maintenance and needs no application. What is not allowed to happen quietly is a change of material, so the cheap quote that puts a concrete interlocking tile onto a clay tile cottage is the one that gets stopped, and the saving was never real.

On a listed building consent covers the repair itself. Send us the address, we check it against listed building consent before pricing, and where the covering is controlled we price the matched material and the salvage of what comes off.

About fourteen miles from us, covering Tarrant Monkton, Tarrant Launceston and the DT11 addresses up the valley from Blandford, 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.