Beacon Basingstoke Roofing

Roofers in Broadmere

Broadmere is a hamlet in Farleigh Wallop parish, 4.6 road miles south of Basingstoke, on clay ground that climbs towards the parish's high centre. Roofs here take the weather, and the parish's best-known buildings, St Andrew's church and Farleigh House, are built of flint and stone. We photograph your own roof, show you what is wrong, then send the price in a written, fixed quote.

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Roofer fitting roof tiles on a brick house near Basingstoke

Roofs we see in Broadmere

  • 1960s and 70s brick semi-detached houses with concrete interlocking tile roofs on a Basingstoke estate street

    Flint and stone buildings

    The Victoria County History describes both St Andrew's church and Farleigh House as flint and stone. Where a house here has flint walls, they are rough and never quite level, so the roofs sitting on them tend to have wavy lines and uneven eaves. New tile, flashing and pointing have to be cut and fitted to suit the wall in front of us, not a plumb line.

  • An Edwardian red-brick detached house with clay tile roof and tile-hung gables in north Hampshire

    Cottages and farm buildings

    A hamlet usually holds a mix: older cottages, converted farm buildings and a few later houses. A map cannot tell us which you have, so the survey starts with the covering and the loft. We note whether it is clay plain tile, concrete tile or slate, whether the rafters are original, and whether there is any underlay beneath the tiles at all.

  • Roofer fitting roof tiles on a brick house near Basingstoke

    Barns, stores and outbuildings

    Outbuildings carry their own roofs, in corrugated sheet, bitumen felt or a flat timber deck. Because nobody goes into them every day, a slipped sheet or a dropped gutter can run for months before anything shows. If you want these included, we photograph them on the same visit as the house and quote for them separately.

4.6 road miles south of Basingstoke

Planning and building control in Broadmere

Broadmere comes under Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council for planning and for building control, and the council publishes guidance for householders on its website. Whether a particular house is listed, or sits inside a conservation area, is something the council's planning team can confirm from your address. Ask before ordering materials, because an older flint-and-clay house is exactly the kind of building where a change of covering can need consent.

For ordinary re-covering, the Planning Portal sets a two-part test. Work that touches under a quarter of the whole building envelope and under half of the roof surface normally needs no building control application. Go past either figure and approval is needed, with the insulation of the entire roof possibly brought up to current standards. A new covering that is much heavier than the old one can also need approval, because the timbers may need strengthening. We deal with the building control side where work is notifiable. If you are weighing up a roof window, read the planning rules for a new skylight first.

What we find on Broadmere roofs

Broadmere sits where the ground rises again before falling away to the north, so the wind reaches its roofs with little to slow it. Underneath is clay over chalk, which matters for walls as well as drains. Our roofers in Basingstoke cover the hamlet and the farmland round it as well as the town.

Chapter 1: Why does rain blow in at the gable edge of our flint cottage near Broadmere during a gale?

What we find

The edge of a roof at the gable end is called the verge. On older cottages it is usually finished with tiles set in a mortar fillet, bedded onto the wall below. On high, open ground that fillet is the first place the wind attacks. Rain is driven sideways into hairline cracks, the mortar loosens, and the end tiles start to lift a little each time a gust gets underneath.

Flint makes this worse, because the wall top is irregular and the mortar bed varies in depth along its length, so some stretches are thin and brittle. Inside, the sign is a damp patch on the gable wall under the roof, a stain that appears only after a storm from one direction, or a tile that has dropped into the border below.

What we fix

We take back the loose end tiles and look at what is under them: the undercloak (the strip of tile or board that closes the gap between roof and wall), the batten ends and the top of the wall. Rotten batten ends are cut out and replaced, and the undercloak is renewed if it has crumbled. The verge is then relaid and fixed mechanically, because BS 5534 no longer relies on mortar alone to hold ridge, hip and verge components in place.

Where the look of the original mortar fillet matters to you, we can pointing-finish the edge in a colour that suits the flint, with the tiles fixed underneath. A dry verge system is the alternative if you prefer a plain finish. Either way we send photographs of the open verge before it is closed up. Our ridge, verge and dry-fix page explains the choices.

Chapter 2: We can see no underlay beneath the clay tiles in our Broadmere loft. Does that mean the roof must be redone?

What we find

Plenty of older clay tile roofs were built without any underlay. The tiles were hung on laths and the gaps between them were sealed from inside with torching, a layer of lime mortar pushed up between tile and batten from the loft side. It worked because the lime breathed, and the roof ventilated itself through the joints. Seen from the loft, it looks like grey crumbling plaster along the underside of the tiles, with daylight in a few places.

That is not by itself a fault. The trouble starts when torching falls away in patches, when tiles have slipped, or when a past repair has used cement that traps water instead. Powder on the loft floor, damp laths and tiles hanging by one nail are the signs that matter. A roof like this can have many years left in it, and it can equally be past saving.

What we fix

We start by checking from both sides: the loft for the state of the laths and rafters, and the roof for the condition of the tiles. If most of the tiles are sound, we strip the weak slopes only, refix the good tiles on new battens over a breathable underlay, and make up the shortfall with matching reclaimed tiles. Where the timbers are sound, they stay. That saves far more than a full replacement and keeps the character of the roof.

If a whole slope needs stripping, the scale of the work may cross the Planning Portal threshold for building control approval, which is when the roof affects 50% or more of its area, or 25% or more of the building envelope. We check this before quoting and handle the notification. Our pitched roofing service sets out how a strip and re-cover runs on site.

Chapter 3: Why does the brick or flint chimney on our Broadmere house leak around the stack after heavy rain?

What we find

A chimney is the most exposed part of any roof, and on rising ground it takes the full force of the wind and rain. Around the base of the stack, the joint between chimney and roof is sealed with a lead flashing (a strip of lead dressed into a mortar joint), with soakers, which are small lead pieces interleaved with the tiles on each side. Over the years the pointing above the flashing opens, water gets behind the lead, and the stain turns up on the chimney breast inside.

The stack itself may be flint, brick or stone, laid in lime. If someone has pointed it in hard cement, the wall cannot dry through the joints and the old material starts to flake. The chimney pot or cowl can also be loose, and the top course, called the flaunching, may have cracked.

What we fix

We look at the chimney from the roof and from the loft, and photograph each face. If the flashings are sound and the pointing has opened, repointing in a lime mix that suits the stack is all that is needed. Where the lead has lifted or split, we replace it and cut new soakers to the tile gauge, so the stack is watertight again. Loose pots are rebedded and the flaunching is redone in the same visit.

Leadwork on a chimney is reported at £350 to £920 in typical UK guides, averaging near £570 before any scaffold; your fixed quote follows the survey. Read more on our chimney repairs and repointing page, or our leadwork page for flashing detail.

Chapter 4: Our Broadmere house is on clay. Can ground movement crack a roof or lift the ridge line?

What we find

The Victoria County History puts the soil of Farleigh Wallop parish as clay over a chalk subsoil. Clay swells when it is wet and shrinks as it dries, and in a dry spell the ground under a shallow footing can move. When that happens to an older house with shallow footings, the roof moves with the walls. It rarely causes damage in itself, but it shows up there first.

Look for a ridge line that has dipped or kinked, a hip tile that has opened at its joint, a gap between the roof and the top of a gable wall, or mortar along a verge cracked in a straight line. Inside, a diagonal crack running from a window corner and a door that has started to bind are the other clues. A roof can mimic these signs when its own timbers have rotted, which is why we separate the two.

What we fix

We photograph every sign and check the roof timbers from the loft, to see whether the problem is in the roof or the walls beneath it. If the roof timbers are sound and the movement is in the building, we repair the covering so it stays watertight, but we do not treat the roof as the cause. We would suggest you ask a structural engineer or building surveyor to look at the walls before any large spend, and we will give you the photographs for that conversation.

Where the covering has opened because of movement, we rebed hips and ridges on a mechanical fix, which tolerates a small amount of give better than a solid mortar run. If a section of roof needs relaying on new battens, the line can be corrected at the same time. Our roof inspections and surveys page describes what the photographs show.

Broadmere roofing questions

Our house is down a long farm track. Does access change how you quote a roof job?

Access matters because tiles, scaffold and a skip all have to get close to the house. At survey we note the state of the track, where a lorry can stop and where materials can be stored, and the fixed written quote reflects that. If the track cannot take a lorry, we plan how to carry or stage the materials rather than leaving it to the day.

Farleigh House and the church are flint and stone. Can you repair a roof on a building like that?

Yes. The roofs on flint and stone buildings need careful cutting and fitting, since the walls are not square, and we take that slowly. For a listed building we record the roof in photographs, recommend like-for-like repair and tell you to check with the council's conservation officer before any change of material. We cannot say from outside whether your house is listed, so ask the council.

Do I need to tell the council before re-roofing an old cottage near Broadmere?

It depends on the size of the job and the status of the building. Small repairs do not normally need a building control application, but a larger strip and re-cover can, and a listed building or a house in a conservation area may need consent for changes. Check with Basingstoke and Deane's planning team. We handle the building control side where work is notifiable.

Can a roof on high, exposed ground near Broadmere be made to cope better with the wind?

Yes, though it is about the details more than the tiles. Mechanically fixed ridge and verge components, sound battens, tiles nailed as well as clipped where the design calls for it, and a firm eaves line all reduce the chances of lifting. We look at those points during the survey and show you which are weak on your roof before suggesting any work.

Is a check needed for bats or nesting birds before work on an old barn or cottage roof?

Possibly. Bats and nesting birds are protected, and old farm buildings and cottages are places they use, so work may need to be timed or surveyed first. If we see signs during the survey, we say so and plan around it rather than carrying on. The answer for your building depends on what is found, and we report it in the survey notes.

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