Roofing in Wool

Gable verges and ridges on a run of houses. The bread and butter here, because half of Wool is terraced or semi-detached. A terrace or a pair carries one long ridge and two gable verges for several households, and both were bedded in mortar when the row was built. Mortar cracks, the verge undercloak loses its haunching and the wind starts working under the edge tile. We strip the bedding and convert to a dry fix system, dry ridge and dry verge screwed onto a ventilated roll, the mechanical fixing BS 5534 expects, which also puts ventilation into the roof space along the ridge. On a run of houses this is worth doing on your length whether or not the neighbours join in.

Party walls and shared slopes. Where two roofs are really one roof, the detail at the party wall matters. Old rows often have a mortar upstand or a cracked haunching over the wall, and that is a common source of a leak that appears to be on your side and starts on theirs. Work at that junction can bring the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 into it, and we will tell you when a notice is needed rather than finding out halfway up a ladder.

Most of Wool is concrete tile, nearly all interlocking, on a bitumen underlay with battens and no sarking board. Older houses near the church carry plain clay tile and natural slate, and a few of the oldest have Purbeck stone slate, a slower and more careful job than anything on the estates. Thatch we leave to a thatcher, though we take on the tiled slope and leadwork beside it. Slipped, cracked and missing tile work, storm damage, and a leak traced back to where water genuinely enters rather than patched where the stain shows. When nails, batten ends and underlay have all gone together, the covering comes off, soft rafter feet and wet timber are cut out, and it goes back on breathable membrane and treated battens with a matched tile. On a mid terrace we set out the scaffold and the tile match before we start, because you cannot leave a half-finished slope in the middle of a row.

Garages, rear extensions, porches and the flat-roofed stores these houses came with go in felt, GRP fibreglass or EPDM rubber, and the deck is what we look at first. Chimney flashings, soakers, valleys and abutments in code rated lead, cut so it can move without splitting, because a mortar fillet at a chimney or where an extension meets the original slope is a leak on a timer. On a continuous run the gutter is shared, so a blockage over one house floods the fascia of the next, and clearing moss and debris off the slope and out of the run is ordinary maintenance. With the roof open and the access already paid for, insulation and eaves ventilation cost a fraction to put right, 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. On a detached plot here the scaffold has room and it is straightforward. On a terrace or a semi it often needs a leg in the neighbour's garden or a stretch across a shared path, which is a conversation to have before the job is booked. 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 anyone else quoting whether the scaffold is in the price and whether battens and membrane are renewed or covered over.

The biggest single group of houses in Wool went up in the 1970s and early 1980s, and much of the rest came in the thirty years before that. Whole streets were roofed within a few months of each other, same tile, same nails, same mortar bedding. They do not wear out one by one. They arrive at the same problem in the same year.

That is genuinely useful to you. When a neighbour's ridge starts shedding, yours is on the same clock, and dealing with the edges before a tile comes off in a gale is much cheaper than dealing with the consequences. It also means a quote for a full re-cover deserves a second opinion: on a roof of that age the tiles themselves are usually fine and it is the mortar and the fixings that have finished. Ask what has actually failed, and ask to see the photograph of it.

About sixteen miles from us, covering Wool, East Burton and the BH20 addresses out towards Wareham and Winfrith, 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.