Roofing in Winterborne Kingston

Ridge, hip and verge are the part of a roof that goes first in Winterborne Kingston. There is no shelter on the weather side of this village, and wind does not lift a roof out of the middle, it picks at the perimeter: bedding mortar splits, the haunching under a verge crumbles away, and the ridge tiles start to move under your hand.

The remedy is to take the mortar off altogether and rebuild the run dry, ridge and verge screwed down over a vented roll, the fixed rather than bedded method BS 5534 calls for.

Concrete tile, most of it interlocking, on the post-war houses and the bungalows off the lane; plain clay tile and natural slate on the older cottages and the farm buildings, battens straight over the underlay with no sarking board behind. Thatch on a handful of roofs, and we do not thatch: we take the junction, the leadwork and the rainwater goods beside it. A tile outlives several sets of whatever holds it down, so a slipped one is almost always a corroded nail, a broken clip or a junction. Once the batten ends give under a thumb the slope comes down to the rafters and is rebuilt on breathable membrane over treated battens.

Gutters carry more weight in Winterborne Kingston than in most villages, and the reason is under your feet rather than over your head: a gutter spilling at a joint, or a downpipe emptying straight onto the ground, is an irritation on a hillside and a real problem on a low plot beside the North Winterbourne. A cement fillet round a stack is the commonest leak on a roof of this age, and it gets replaced in code rated lead. With the slope open, insulation and ventilation at the eaves are far cheaper, and Approved Document L sets out the standard a renovated roof is held to.

We never quote a roof by the square metre. The figure depends on what the roof is made of, what sits under it, and how the scaffold goes up.

Weather from the south west. The most exposed side of a house here faces south west, across open ground. Wind and driven rain attack the verges, eaves and ridge far more than the middle of a slope, so the fixing of tiles and battens follows BS 5534, the code of practice for slating and tiling. On an exposed pitch that can mean more clips and nails than the old roof ever had.

What is under the tiles. An older roof may have no underlay at all, or a bitumen felt gone brittle at the eaves. The size of the battens, the condition of the rafters and the lead in the valleys and round the chimney only really show once the covering is lifted.

The scaffold. A detached house with a drive is one kind of erection. A cottage tight to the lane, or a roof above a conservatory, is another. It is work at height, and the work at height rules are why the platform is a priced line and not an optional extra.

When you hold another quote next to ours, go through it line by line. Is the scaffold included? Are the battens and membrane renewed, or covered over? Is the lead flashing new, or reused?

The village sits on the North Winterborne, which behaves like the chalk stream it is: dry or nearly dry through the summer, then running hard from midwinter. Parts of Winterborne Kingston are inside the flood zones and the surface water mapping is high here, which you can check for your own address on the government flood risk service. None of that changes how a roof is tiled. It changes what happens at the bottom of the downpipe.

So when we quote rainwater goods here we price the outfall, not just the gutter. A downpipe running to a gully that is blocked, or discharging onto the ground beside the wall, puts the whole of your roof into the few square metres nearest your foundations at exactly the time of year the ground is already full. Approved Document H sets out what a rainwater outlet is supposed to connect to.

Ask whoever quotes you where each downpipe actually goes. On a low plot it is a better question than what the guttering is made of.

Winterborne Kingston is about 16.2 miles from our base at 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe, and we also cover the DT11 addresses out towards Bere Regis and Milborne St Andrew. Dorset Council handles planning and building control here, in the Puddletown and Lower Winterborne ward.

The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and it is Thomas Hannen's business. Thomas comes out and prices your roof himself. One verified customer left us a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit and the itemised written quote cost you nothing. Before you book a visit in Winterborne Kingston, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Winterborne Kingston 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.