Roofing in Upton

Leak tracing on a shared slope. The job that comes up here more than any other. On a terrace or a semi the water enters over one house and appears over the next, because it runs down the underlay or along a batten before it drips. We start in the loft with the covering still on, find the wet timber and work up the slope from it rather than lifting tiles above the stain and hoping. Where the fault sits over next door, we say so.

Ridge, hip and verge. Mortar bedded ridges on the 1960s and 1970s stock crack and let the tiles rock, and on a long terrace the whole run goes together. We convert to a dry fix system, dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects, which ventilates the roof space along the ridge as it goes on. On the later closes the dry verge is already there, but the early plastic units go brittle and snap at the clip.

Almost everything here is concrete tile, interlocking on the post-war estates and flatter on the newer closes, with plain tile, clay tile and natural slate on the older properties towards Lytchett Minster, and where thatch adjoins we stop at the junction. The bitumen felt under a roof of this age perishes at the eaves, the one place it has to be sound to carry water into the gutter, and with no sarking board behind it the batten ends and rafter feet take the water as soon as it tears. That is what decides a re-cover, not the look of the tiles. When the nails have rusted and the felt tears at a touch, the covering comes off, wet timber is cut out and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile, finished tight at the party wall so the neighbour's half is left sound.

Flat roofs over the rear kitchen extensions, garages and porches in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, deck first, because here the outlet is usually the problem: one small gutter taking a whole flat roof. Terraces share a stack more often than not, and a chimney flashing repaired on one side only tends to be back within a year. Rainwater goods run house to house, so a blockage two doors along overflows onto your wall. With the covering off, insulation and eaves ventilation cost a fraction to sort, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

No rate per square metre: on a roof that is the least useful number there is. Upton is mostly narrow. Terraced rows and tight closes mean the scaffold often has to come through a shared alley or stand partly on a neighbour's ground, which we ask about at the survey rather than on the morning it arrives. It is work at height, and the work at height rules are why the platform is a priced line rather than an optional extra. Ask any other quote whether the scaffold is in and whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over.

The ground under Upton is cohesive and it shrinks and swells with the seasons. That makes rainwater a structural question here rather than just a damp one. A downpipe discharging beside a wall, a cracked gully or a soakaway sitting too close to a footing keeps one patch of clay wet all year while the rest dries out in summer, and that difference is what opens cracks in a wall.

So when we look at a roof here we follow the water all the way to the ground, not just to the gutter. We check that every downpipe actually enters a gully rather than splashing onto a path, that the gullies are clear, and that the discharge goes somewhere with a proper outfall. Approved Document H is the standard for that, and it is why we would rather re-run a downpipe while the platform is up than come back to it.

If you have had cracking to a wall as well as a wet fascia, mention it when you ring, because the two are often the same fault.

Just under seven miles from us, covering Upton, Lytchett Minster, Hamworthy and the BH16 addresses out towards Sandford, 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.