Roofing in Tarrant Monkton

The tiled half, and the lead at the junction. Thatched roofs are part of Tarrant Monkton, 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. In a village like this the leadwork matters most: 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 in Tarrant Monkton 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.

Getting a scaffold here takes planning. Out in Tarrant Monkton the lorry may not be able to stop outside, so tube and boards get carried from wherever it can park. The longer the platform stands, the more it costs, which is why the work at height rules appear as their own line rather than being hidden in a rate.

Clay, slate or concrete. Handmade clay plain tiles, natural slate and concrete interlocking tiles each strip and fix in their own way. Where the house is listed, the new tile or slate has to match, and finding reclaimed stock that does can take a while.

Underneath. Plenty of older Tarrant Monkton roofs had no underlay at first, and others carry a bitumen felt now crumbling at the eaves. Battens nailed through it are rarely worth keeping. A quote that renews battens and membrane is a different roof from one that covers over them.

Leadwork and edges. Lead at the stack, a valley, and bedding along the ridge and verge eat hours no square metre figure shows. Mortar alone is no longer enough to hold a ridge or verge under the fixing standard, so a mechanical or dry fixed system may be part of the job.

Hold another quote up against ours. Is the scaffold in, and for how many weeks? Will the battens and membrane be new? Who is paying 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, like for like repair rarely needs consent, but any change of material or detail does. Send us the address and we check the list before pricing, and where the covering is controlled we price the matched material and the salvage of what comes off.

Tarrant Monkton, with Tarrant Launceston next door, is fifteen miles up from our base in Boscombe. It sits in the Cranborne Chase ward on DT11, with Dorset Council as the council. The roof is priced by Thomas Hannen, whose business this is.

The company behind it is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, so you can look it up before you ring. Checkatrade carries a 10 out of 10 from one verified customer. Coming out to see the roof is free, and the itemised written quote costs nothing either. Before you book a visit in Tarrant Monkton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Tarrant Monkton 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.