Roofing in Wimborne Minster

Slate repairs. The commonest job in the older streets, and pre-1900 building is the largest single cohort in the town. Natural slate outlasts the nails that hold it, so slates start slipping one and two at a time while the slate itself is still good. Single slipped slates are re-hung on a copper clip. What we will not do is stitch a roof together with a dozen of them and call it repaired, because once several have gone in one season the fixings are telling you something.

Chimneys and leadwork. A town of terraces is a town of chimney stacks, and the stack is where most of these leaks begin. Flashings, soakers, the back gutter behind the stack where debris collects, cracked flaunching, and the valleys and abutments between one range and the next, all in code rated lead cut so it can move without splitting. Where a stack sits on a party wall we deal with the whole of it rather than half.

The older properties carry plain tile and handmade clay tile, no two the same size, and the post-war streets concrete tile, most of it interlocking. There is no stone slate in this county, and where thatch adjoins we say at the visit which part of the work we can take on. Clay ridge bedded in mortar cracks and lets go, and the verge loses its bedding at the gable. On the newer estates we convert to a dry fix system, dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects. On a period roof inside the Wimborne Minster Conservation Area, where appearance is controlled, we re-bed the original ridge instead and say why.

An old slate roof has no underlay at all, just battens over the rafters with torching underneath, so a re-roof puts breathable membrane and treated battens in for the first time. Sound slates come off carefully and go back on the elevation that faces the street, with matched new material behind, and where a covering has to change we get the sample agreed before anything is ordered. Back additions, outriggers, dormers and the flat over a shop front go in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, deck first, because on a town roof the outlet often discharges into a hopper on a boundary you cannot reach from your own side. A third of the dwellings here are flats, so more often than not the roof over you belongs to the freeholder.

Cast iron rainwater goods on the older properties are heavy, painted and worth keeping if the run is sound. A gutter running over behind a parapet does not drip where you can see it, it soaks the wall, so clearing the run is maintenance here rather than tidying. North facing slate greens over and holds water in the laps, and clearing it needs care, because a pressure lance takes the surface off an old slate. Insulating a cold loft that has always breathed through the slates can start a damp problem if nobody thinks about the airflow, and Approved Document L sets the standard a renovated roof should reach.

No rate per square metre: on a roof that is the least useful number there is. In the town centre access is often the biggest single line. Terraces have no rear access, so material goes through the house or over the roof, and a scaffold that stands on the footway needs a licence from the council and time to arrange. 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.

A third of the homes in Wimborne are flats or maisonettes, which is a much higher share than the villages around it, and it changes who we can take instructions from. The outside of a flat, the roof as much as the walls, almost always belongs to the freeholder and is paid for out of the service charge. So the person who can see the damp patch is often not the person who can order the repair.

If that is you, ring the managing agent and ask them to instruct a quote, and send us the postcode anyway so we know what we are looking at. Where the freeholder means to recover the cost from leaseholders, Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 obliges them to consult before work starts, which takes weeks rather than days. That is why our quote is itemised line by line: it is the format the consultation needs, and the reason a roof on a block is worth starting early.

About six and a half miles from us, covering Wimborne Minster, Furzehill, Merley and the BH21 addresses around the town, 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.