Roofing in Winfrith Newburgh

Knowing what is up there. One village, four coverings. Purbeck stone slate on the oldest houses, graded heavy at the eaves and small near the ridge. Plain clay tile and natural slate on the Victorian work. Concrete tile, most of it interlocking, on everything since the war. They fail differently, so we say on site which you have and what is holding it down. On a Purbeck slope the slate outlives the oak peg carrying it, so what looks like a worn out covering is nearly always a spent fixing, and interlocking concrete tells the same story through a corroded clip.

Ridge, hip and verge. Our most frequent booking in this village, because mortar bedding laid two generations back splits and rinses away long before anything troubles the middle of a slope, and a gale then leaves cracked and missing tiles along that edge, so most of the storm damage we see here starts at a ridge or a verge. On the post-war houses that means lifting the whole run and putting it back mechanically, a dry fix system with dry ridge and dry verge units screwed down over a vented roll, the fixed rather than bedded approach BS 5534 asks for. On a stone slate or clay roof inside the Winfrith Newburgh Conservation Area we bed and point by hand instead, because a moulded verge trim on a cottage of that sort would look imported.

Several roofs here are thatched and some run into tile at a junction. We do not thatch: we take the junction, the leadwork and the rainwater goods, worked to the thatcher's programme rather than across it. Leadwork otherwise means chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments in code rated sheet sized to move without tearing, and houses of this age carry more stacks and more valleys than any modern estate.

Once the nails are rust and the underlay splits at a touch, patching is wasted money: the slope comes down to the rafters, decayed feet are cut back to sound wood, and it is rebuilt on breathable membrane over treated battens with the covering matched to what came off. Almost no roof in the village has a sarking board, which leaves the membrane as the only thing between a driven shower and your ceiling. Call us to a roof leak and there is a fair chance we go home having fixed a gutter, because the shaded slopes down the lanes shed moss and algae into the run below, and clearing that debris out of the gutters and downpipes saves the fascia and soffit behind them. With the slope open, insulation and eaves ventilation cost a fraction of a later visit, and Approved Document L sets out the standard a renovated roof is held to.

No rate per square metre: on a roof that is the least useful number there is. Winfrith is lanes, soft verges and houses tight to the road rather than drives a lorry can stand on, and several properties have no way round to the back at all. 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 designation over the older part of the village is narrower than people fear and stricter than they hope. Putting back what is already there is maintenance and can be done next week without telling anyone. Swapping stone slate for concrete tile, or clay plain tile for interlocking, changes the look of the street, and that is what it controls.

Two things follow. Get your address checked before you accept anybody's quote, because a price built on the cheap covering for a house that cannot have it is a surprise waiting for you halfway through. And keep the old slates: when a slope is stripped, the sound ones coming off it are the closest match you will find for the ones that are not.

Just under eighteen miles west of us, covering Winfrith Newburgh, East Knighton and the DT2 addresses out towards Wool and Owermoigne, 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.