Roofers in Waterlooville

A village with a medieval church and a green tells a roofer a good deal before he lifts a single tile. Waterlooville gives no such clues. The Victoria County History called it a modern settlement, as its name implies, strung along the London and Portsmouth road about three miles north of Cosham, and it lies on the northern side of Portsdown in what used to be Forest of Bere country. The practical meaning for a roof is plain: the postcode will not reveal how old the covering is, so the roof has to tell us.

1.1 Why age matters more than the address

We work from evidence. The battens, the softwood laths the tiles hang from, show whether the roof has been renewed. The underlay, a waterproof membrane below the battens, dates the build, as old felt goes brittle and splits at the laps. BS 5534, revised in 2014, wants ridge and hip tiles tied down with a clip or screw as well as mortar, so a ridge bedded on mortar alone dates the work and often calls for attention.

1.2 No conservation area, but still some checks

Havant Borough Council lists 14 conservation areas and none is named for Waterlooville, and its Article 4 page records no direction covering the town. For an unlisted house, replacing a roof on the same lines seldom needs planning permission. Flats do not share a house's permitted development rights, and a listed building follows its own rules, so send your address to the planners before work begins. The council also runs building control, and it or a registered building control approver tells you whether your roof job is notifiable.

1.3 Valleys, abutments and rear extensions

A long road holds a long mix of building types, and the harder roofs are the ones with a join in them: a valley where two slopes drain together, an abutment where a slope runs into a wall, a rear extension tied into the main roof. Lead seals each join. Soakers are small folded lead sheets slipped beneath each course next to a wall, with the flashing as the strip laid over them to carry water off. Our lead roofing and leadwork page describes the materials we choose, and our pitched roofing page covers the slopes around it.

Gutters and downpipes sit along the lowest edge of every slope and are rarely noticed until a stain appears on a wall. On the same visit we check the gutter run, its joints and the fascia behind, and say whether a length can be refixed. Our guttering, soffits and fascias page covers replacements.

A road town puts houses close to traffic, and that changes how a re-roof is run. Where the scaffold stands, what the council has to be told and what the quote must include all deserve an answer before a tile comes off.

3.1 Scaffold on a Hampshire road

Section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 puts scaffold that blocks the public highway under licence, and around Waterlooville the licence is issued by Hampshire County Council. Under Hampshire County Council's arrangements the scaffolding contractor makes the application for the householder, and the county asks for at least 10 clear working days' notice. The charge is £211.90 for the first two weeks and £72 for every further two, and no extensions are given. A job that overruns can therefore cost more, which is one reason we line up deliveries and the dry spells before the licence is requested.

3.2 The thresholds that decide building control

According to the Planning Portal, you can normally skip a building control application where under 25 per cent of the whole building envelope is affected and under 50 per cent of the roof. Approval is needed if the new covering will be 15 per cent heavier or more, if the structure is altered, or if the new covering will behave differently in a fire. Havant's building control service or a registered building control approver confirms what applies to your roof, and where a notification is due we deal with it. Approved Document L can also demand better roof insulation when more than 50 per cent of its surface is renovated, with an improved value of 0.16 W/(m²·K) in Table 4.3 of the 2021 edition.

3.3 VAT and what a quote should say

The standard VAT rate is 20 per cent, and a re-roof is standard-rated. When quotes arrive, check that each one states whether VAT and scaffold sit in the total. Checkatrade's October 2026 guide puts a typical UK three-bedroom semi-detached re-roof at around £12,000, a figure to sense-check against, not a price for your roof. Our quote is written, with a single total at the bottom, and the survey photographs behind it show what the work covers. The unglamorous parts are in the job as well: taking the old covering away, protecting the garden and the drive, and leaving the road swept. Nothing is left behind: the old covering and the rubbish leave with us.