Roofing in West Moors

Ridge, hip and verge go first on these roofs. Mortar bedding of this age cracks, washes out and lets wind under the edge of the covering. We convert it to a dry fixed system screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects, which ventilates the roof space along the ridge at the same time. It is priced by the metre of edge, and at 50.9% bungalows this is a village of long edges.

Slipped, cracked and missing tiles, storm damage, and leaks traced back to where water genuinely enters, not patched where the stain shows. Most of the housing carries concrete interlocking tile, with plain clay tile and natural slate on the older properties, and the fault is usually a fixing or a junction rather than the covering. Bitumen felt of this vintage goes brittle and tears where it laps into the gutter, which is the one place it has to be sound, and that is the usual cause of a wet fascia. Under it sit the battens and the rafter feet, and those are what we check from inside.

When nails, battens and membrane have gone together the covering comes off, soft timber is replaced, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile. On a bungalow that is a lot of roof, which is exactly why we would rather sell you the edge work if the edge work will do. Garages, rear additions and porch roofs go in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, deck first then the falls, upstands and outlet, and chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments in code rated lead. If what you have is a single rocking ridge tile or one drip to trace, that is on our page for roof repairs in West Moors.

Long gutter runs on a bungalow overshoot easily, and a second outlet often fixes permanently what clearing fixes for a season. Clearing moss and debris is ordinary maintenance and it heads off the rotted fascia below. The loft matters a great deal here: the roof covers the whole footprint, so it is the largest surface on the building and where most of the heat goes. Insulation, eaves ventilation and condensation are all cheaper to sort with the covering off, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof is expected to reach.

A rate per square metre misleads badly on a bungalow. For the size of the house, the roof is big, and the edges are long.

Edges, not area. Roofs fail at the edges. A hipped bungalow has far more ridge, hip and verge per household than a two storey house, and those are the slow, fiddly parts to renew.

A village of roofs the same age. Most homes in West Moors were built between the end of the war and the early eighties, many of them around the turn of the seventies. Those roofs went on within a few years of each other, and the mortar on their ridges and verges is cracking at the same time. Often the tiles are sound and the job is edge work: rebedding, or better, a dry-fixed ridge and verge system to BS 8612. That is a very different price from a full re-cover.

What is under the tiles. Old bitumen felt goes brittle and tears at the eaves. If the loft shows that across the roof, patching the edges only buys time.

Access. Low eaves mean a tower or a light scaffold rather than a tall one. It is still work at height, and the work at height rules are why the platform is its own line. A chalet bungalow with dormers adds cheeks and flashings to the list.

Ask any other roofer whether they are pricing edge work or a full re-cover and why, how the ridge and verges will be fixed, and whether the underlay is being renewed.

Just over half the dwellings here are bungalows. Put the same floor area on one storey and you roughly double the roof, and add a great deal more ridge, hip, verge and guttering per household. So a re-cover costs more per bedroom than on a two storey house, while the scaffold element is cheaper and the loft repays the effort of insulating it properly.

The village is also flat and low on sand over river gravel. Most of it sits in the lowest flood zone, with the exposure along the Uddens Water at Riverside Road, Mannington Way and Shaftesbury Road. Roof water cannot go into a foul sewer, and on this ground a soakaway is not the automatic answer between November and March. Check your own address on the government flood risk service.

Most repairs in West Moors 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.