Roofers in Emsworth

Emsworth sits at the head of the western arm of Chichester Harbour, and up to the 19th century it was famous for its oyster fishing fleet. Havant Borough Council's character appraisal describes a conservation area covering the older waterside town south of the A259, between the two historic mill ponds, with the quayside dominated by the former tide mill. The same appraisal records the slate roofs lost on North Street and Havant Road, which come up again below. Living in a conservation area does not freeze your roof. It means the council looks harder at changes to how a street reads, and a roof is the largest single part of that view. A new covering that differs in colour, texture or profile from the old one is the change most likely to draw questions, so before suggesting what goes back we ask what is up there now and what the neighbours have.

1.1 Lumley Mill and the church of St James

Lumley Mill carries a Grade II* listing dating from 10 May 1973, and the Church of St James has a Grade II listing. Listing sits on top of the conservation area as a second layer. The 1990 Act on listed buildings bars unauthorised alterations that would affect a building's special character, so a plain like-for-like repair is a different matter from a changed covering, a new roof window or a rebuilt stack. A church in use for worship may fall under the ecclesiastical exemption instead, with the denomination's own approval process in place of council consent. Whichever route applies, we study the list entry before pricing anything beyond a simple mend, and we suggest an early word with Havant Borough Council's planning team. An answer in writing costs far less than a stalled job, and it gives the scaffold firm and the tile supplier something firm to work from.

1.2 Chimneys and lead on the older roofs

Older roofs often carry plenty of junctions: stacks, party walls shared with a neighbour, small valleys where two slopes meet. Each needs a metal flashing that bridges the roof and the wall. Lead is the usual choice for traditional work and is sold by code. According to Royston Lead's brochure, code 4 at 1.80 mm suits soakers, flashings, pitched valleys and dormers, and code 5 at 2.24 mm adds box gutters. Soakers are the little folded pieces threaded between courses where a roof runs into a wall. A brown stain on a ceiling or chimney breast is the usual sign that one of these joints is tired. Our lead roofing and leadwork page explains what we renew and how it is dressed.

Emsworth lies inside Chichester Harbour National Landscape, a protected landscape designated on 4 February 1964 and given its present name in 2023. The harbour setting does not stop roofing, but it draws more attention to bigger changes such as dormers, which is a planning question for the council rather than a roofing one. On the water's edge, weather is simply part of the job: gales, driving rain and salt air. A fixing schedule is drawn up site by site, with location and local wind exposure both counted, so we set ours from what the survey shows and not from a rule of thumb. We also look at how water leaves the roof, because a blocked gutter at the quay does as much harm as a slipped tile. Leaves, moss and silt build up quickly beside the mill ponds, and an overflowing gutter soaks the wall, the fascia and eventually the ceiling inside.

3.1 Ridges, hips and gable edges beside the harbour

Along the very top of a pitched roof runs the ridge. A hip is a sloping outer corner, and the verge is the tiled edge above a gable wall. Wind gets under all three first. Since BS 5534 was revised in 2014, mortar is no longer the only thing holding the capping on; mechanical fixings share the load. An older ridge sitting only on a bed of mortar is something we find often. Refixing it with clips or screws, plus a fresh bed, is a modest job when caught early and a far bigger one once a gale has stripped the capping. The same goes for the gable edge, where a verge that has lost its mortar lets rain run straight into the wall below. Our roof repairs page covers the smaller jobs of this kind.

3.2 Scaffold licences, bats and nesting birds

Many Emsworth roofs need scaffold. If it stands on or across the road or pavement, the highway authority must grant a licence, and for Emsworth that is Hampshire County Council. Its page asks for ten clear working days between application and start date, and lists £211.90 for the first two weeks. Hampshire County Council states that scaffold companies apply for their customers, so the wait goes into the plan on day one. Bats and nesting birds are both protected by law, so if either turns up under the tiles, we pause and rework the plan. On any job, the survey comes first and a single total price follows in writing.