Beacon Basingstoke Roofing

Roofers in Kempshott

Kempshott is only 3.2 road miles south-west of Basingstoke, and most of it was built in three phases across the 1970s and early 1980s, with streets named after lakes, flowers and birds. Those estate roofs have reached the age where ridges, eaves and garage flats need attention. You see photographs of your own roof before you see any figure, and the figure is then fixed in writing.

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

Roofs we see in Kempshott

  • House roof stripped to battens during a roof replacement

    1970s estate houses in three phases

    Kempshott grew in three phases between the 1970s and the early 1980s, and houses from the same phase tend to share their roof details, typically concrete interlocking tile, a mortar-bedded ridge and timber at the eaves. Four to five decades of weather have reached the parts that were never meant to last that long. Ridge mortar, the felt under the tiles and the painted timber at the eaves are the usual first signs.

  • A row of Victorian terraced houses with Welsh slate roofs and brick chimneys in Reading

    Garages, extensions and flat porches

    Alongside the pitched roofs sit flat ones: integral garages, kitchen extensions, porches and bay roofs. Many were finished in bitumen felt when built and have been patched or re-covered since. A flat roof on a house of this age has no great margin for error. Water settles where the deck has dipped, and the upstand against the house wall is the place that most often lets it in.

  • A Georgian brick town house with a slate roof and parapet in a Hampshire market town

    Gabriel Park and newer homes

    Gabriel Park is a recent development at the A30 end of Kempshott Lane, and roofs of that age are a different job. The covering is rarely the issue. We are called for a lifted flashing, a slipped tile after a gale, a blocked gutter or a leak at a roof window. Newer homes often have a builder's warranty to think about, so we photograph the fault and leave the choice of route with you.

3.2 road miles south-west of Basingstoke

Planning and building control in Kempshott

Kempshott falls within Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, which deals with both planning and building control. The facts we hold about the suburb describe housing from the 1970s onward, not a historic core, so most roof jobs here are ordinary estate work. Even so, if your street runs close to an older building or a listed one, the council publishes its designated areas on its conservation appraisals page, and it is worth a look before any change of materials.

A repair or a like-for-like re-cover on an estate house is usually uncomplicated. A full strip is a bigger step: depending on how much of the roof is involved, it can be notifiable, and then the insulation may have to be upgraded at the same time. We handle that side and tell you before work starts. If a roof window is on your list, our guide to skylight planning sets out the position, so we do not repeat it here. Check anything unusual with the council's planning team.

What we find on Kempshott roofs

Walk any of Kempshott's lake, flower or bird streets and the roofs repeat themselves, because whole runs went up together. That is useful for diagnosis, since a fault on one house tells us what to expect on its neighbours. The Old Down end is also open to wind off the downland.

Chapter 1: Why are mortar crumbs and loose ridge tiles turning up on our Kempshott estate house?

What we find

In the 1970s and early 1980s a ridge, the run of cap tiles that closes the roof at its peak, was bedded on mortar and nothing else. The verge, where the roof stops at a gable wall, was treated the same way. Mortar is a rigid material fixed to tiles that expand and contract with the temperature, and after decades the bond breaks. Frost gets into the hairline cracks and lifts the mortar away in lumps.

The evidence is usually underfoot before it is overhead: grit on the path, sand in the gutter or on the car roof, a ridge tile that has shifted in its bed. The Old Down end of the suburb is open to the weather coming off chalk grassland, and a gust can finish what the frost started. From the loft, you may see daylight along the apex or a darkened rafter where water has crept in.

What we fix

We lift a sample of the ridge to see whether the tiles themselves are sound, which on concrete tile of this age is the normal finding. They can be reused, but the standard BS 5534 now expects ridge, hip and verge units to be fixed mechanically, so mortar is not relied on alone. On a Kempshott estate roof, that usually means a dry-fix system: a batten, a vented roll and clips or screws holding each tile, all of it covered by BS 8612.

Dry verge units go on at the same visit, so the whole perimeter is done together. A dry ridge on a semi usually falls between £900 and £1,600 across the UK, with scaffold between £300 and £900 extra. The fixed quote comes after the survey. The choices are set out on our ridge tile repairs page.

Chapter 2: Why is the fascia board rotting and the soffit flaking on our 1970s house in Kempshott?

What we find

The fascia is the board running along the foot of the roof that carries the gutter, and the soffit is the underside of the overhang. On houses of this period both were usually timber, painted, and often with a short lifespan between repaints. If the gutter leaks at a joint or overflows for years, the water runs down the back of the fascia and the paint blisters. The wood goes soft from the top edge, where nobody looks.

Some soffits from this era were fixed with a vent strip, and many were later covered, so the loft ventilation is not what the builders intended. Look for peeling paint, stains below a gutter joint, a sagging gutter run, or birds and wasps using a gap at the eaves. Along the eaves of a rotten fascia the felt tends to be exposed to the weather too, which leads to damp in the bedroom ceiling nearby.

What we fix

If only a few boards have gone, we replace those. If the rot runs along the front of the house, the roofline is better replaced in one go: new fascia and soffit boards, vented soffits so the roof space breathes, and gutters hung on new brackets. A felt tray at the eaves directs water into the gutter and not behind it, and we check the underlay as the old boards come off.

Replacement is normally done in uPVC (rigid plastic that needs no repainting) or in painted timber if you prefer. Across the UK, a whole uPVC roofline on a semi-detached house is typically priced at £1,800 to £3,500, while the scaffold for it can cost anywhere from £200 to £2,600. A fixed quote comes after the survey. Read our guttering, soffits and fascias page for how the options compare.

Chapter 3: The flat roof over our Kempshott garage keeps leaking at the wall. Does it need replacing?

What we find

Flat roofs on estate houses of the 1970s were commonly built as a timber deck with three layers of bitumen felt, and the garage or extension roof is now old enough that its original covering has gone. Even a re-felted roof reaches the end of its life in time. The common failure point is not the middle of the roof but the upstand, which is where the felt turns up the house wall and is sealed under a flashing.

Look for a dark line down the inside wall of the garage, a swollen ceiling board, bubbles in the felt, or a pool of water that lingers a day after rain. The cause is typically a split along the upstand or a sag in the deck that traps water. Because the water can run along a joist before it drips, the stain is often some way from the real fault.

What we fix

A localised split can be repaired if the rest of the covering is sound, and we say so when it is. Where the felt is blistered across the whole roof, a patch buys little, so we take the covering down to the boards, renew any that have softened, and lay a new membrane. EPDM is one sheet of synthetic rubber; GRP (glass-reinforced plastic) is applied liquid over matting and sets rigid. Either gives a continuous surface with far fewer joints than felt.

Typical UK ranges are EPDM at £80 to £120 per square metre and GRP at £100 to £160, and a single-garage roof in EPDM is reported at £1,200 to £2,500. The fixed quote comes after the survey. Our flat roofing page explains the differences in more detail.

Chapter 4: We bought a newer home near Gabriel Park and have a leak around the chimney or a roof window. Who should look at it?

What we find

Gabriel Park is a recent development, so its roofs are likely to have modern underlay and dry-fixed ridges. That moves the likely faults to the details: flashings at a chimney or a roof window, a tile that moved in a storm, or a gutter joint that was never sealed well. A leak on a roof this young is usually small, and it is easy to make worse by guessing at the cause.

The first question is whether the home is still under a builder's warranty or a structural defects policy, because that determines who should be called. If it is not, or if the builder has already declined, a plain inspection tells you whether it is a workmanship fault or a weathering one. Staining around a flashing, damp in the corner of a ceiling, or water appearing after wind-driven rain are the clues.

What we fix

We start from the photographs, which show the fault and its surroundings, and check the flashing, the batten line and the tile nearest the leak. Most repairs at this age are minor: re-forming a lead or aluminium flashing, re-bedding or replacing a slipped tile, or re-sealing a gutter joint. The photo report can be passed to the builder or warranty provider, if that route is open to you.

If the leak is at a roof window, we check the flashing kit and its fit to the tile profile before blaming the glass. Typical UK ranges for fitting a roof window run from £680 to £1,300 on trade figures; the fixed quote comes once we have surveyed. What the survey covers is on our roof inspections page.

Kempshott roofing questions

Do Kempshott houses from the three building phases all have the same roof?

Not necessarily. Kempshott was built in three phases between the 1970s and the early 1980s, so details and tiles can differ between streets that look alike. A house from the first phase may be several years older than one from the last. At survey we identify the covering and the likely age, then check the places where that type usually wears, and quote only for what your roof needs.

My Kempshott house was built in the 1970s. Is it time for a new roof?

Not always. The concrete tiles of that period are often still sound, while the ridge mortar, the eaves felt and the fascias have worn out. We lift a few tiles and look at the battens and underlay from the loft. If the roof has years left, we quote for repairs and say so plainly. Where it is finished, we explain why before quoting a re-roof, and the work is guaranteed in writing for 10 years.

Does the wind near Old Down make roofs here more likely to fail?

Old Down is open chalk grassland at the southern end of Kempshott, west of the A30, and houses beside open ground take more wind than those in the middle of an estate. That tends to show first at ridges, verges and loose tiles on the exposed gable. We check these edges on every survey, and dry-fix ridge and verge units hold better in a gale than old mortar.

Can you re-cover the flat roof on a Kempshott garage and clear the waste?

Yes. We strip the old covering, replace any damaged boards, fit the new membrane and take the waste away, leaving the site clear. If the garage still has corrugated sheets rather than a flat deck, we cannot assume what they are made of, and they are treated as suspect asbestos cement until tested. Tell us at the survey and we plan the removal around the HSE rules.

I would like a roof window in the loft of my Kempshott house. What do I need to know first?

On an estate house, a roof window is usually straightforward, but the opening has to suit the rafters and the escape rules for a loft room are strict. Read our roof windows page and the planning guide it links to. Check with Basingstoke and Deane's building control for a loft conversion, and we will measure up on the survey.

Nearby areas

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Tell us what’s happening and we’ll call you back to arrange a visit. You’ll get photos of your roof and a fixed written quote.

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