Roofers in Denmead

Denmead is usually called Barn Green after its small triangular green, and it became a parish of its own only in 1881, when it was formed as an ecclesiastical parish out of Hambledon. The date matters to a roofer in a roundabout way. A village that took shape as a parish in the late Victorian years sits among buildings of many ages, and the age of a roof tells us more than its address does. Before we say anything about repair or replacement, we work out which generation of roof we are looking at, because a roof from before the Second World War and one from the last few decades fail in different places.

1.1 Reading a roof's age from the loft

From inside the loft we look at the battens, the thin softwood strips the tiles are hung from, and at the underlay, the membrane laid beneath the covering. Brittle, darkened underlay and battens gone soft around the nail holes mean the covering has outlived what carries it. Sound battens under a few slipped tiles point the other way, towards a repair. Lifespans are only typical ranges. Marley quotes a minimum of 60 years for clay tile, citing the Building Research Establishment, and a similar figure for concrete, while stressing that neither is a guarantee. Checkatrade puts stone slate beyond the century mark. A roof of any covering can fall well short of those figures if it has been neglected.

1.2 Ridges, hips and verges on older roofs

The ridge caps the top of the slopes. Hips are the angled ridges at the roof's outer corners, and the verge is the finished edge over a gable wall. These are the first parts to loosen, because they take the most weather and often sit on nothing but old mortar. After BS 5534 was revised in 2014, mortar on its own stopped being trusted to hold ridge and hip tiles; screws, clips or straps now back it up. The standard itself allows that older roofs built from reclaimed tiles or slates may not fit its rules to the letter, so we judge each one on its own merits and explain what we would change and why.

1.3 What you receive after the survey

We photograph each fault on your roof, say plainly whether it needs a repair, a stop-gap or a full replacement, and our written quote then names a single total. Smaller jobs sit under roof repairs, which explains how a tired slope is mended without stripping the whole roof. Each fault we find is logged against a photograph, so you can see the slipped tile, the open joint or the lifted flashing for yourself instead of taking our word for it.

Denmead lies south of Hambledon in what was once Forest of Bere country, according to the Victoria County History. Wherever trees stand close to a house, what they do to its roof is easy to predict. Their leaves and needles land in gutters and valleys, they shade north slopes so that moss holds water against the covering, and their branches rub on tiles in a gale. A woodland edge plot is a gutter and moss job as much as a tile job.

3.1 Gutters that keep up with the leaves

Rainwater guttering is laid to a gentle fall towards the outlet, roughly 1:600 to 1:350 depending on the system, and brackets are normally set no more than 900 mm apart. A gutter that has sagged between brackets holds a pool of wet leaves, and the overflow runs down the wall or soaks the fascia, the board behind the gutter, and the soffit beneath the overhang. Clearing is the first step, and it is worth doing before the autumn leaf fall as well as after, since a gutter that is full going into a gale is the one that overflows against the wall. When the board behind has gone soft, replacing the lot is the plainer answer, and our guttering, soffit and fascia page sets out the options.

3.2 Moss, cleaning and what lies underneath

Moss is a symptom. It tells us the slope stays damp, and it can hide cracked tiles and failed pointing beneath the green. We wash and treat only once the roof has been checked, because cleaning a roof that is already letting in water simply moves the leak. If a clean shows tiles that are past saving, the photographs show you which. Our roof cleaning and moss removal page covers the process.

Checkatrade's roof repair guide, updated in October 2026, puts ridge tile repairs at £50 to £70 a metre and lead flashing repairs at the same range, with the note that its costs exclude VAT. The same guide gives £280 to £360 a day for roofers. Those are national typical figures, not a price for your roof, and your quote is written after the survey.

Protected species matter near woodland: bats roost in roof spaces and birds nest in eaves, and a roost or an active nest halts the work until it is safe to go on.