Roof Replacement Fleet

The bitumen felt fitted under most twentieth-century roofs goes brittle long before the tiles above it wear out, tearing at every lap and leaving the loft to catch whatever the covering lets past. A roof inspection from inside the loft establishes the felt’s true condition before any decision to strip and renew is made.

Fleet’s inter-war and post-war homes were felted with exactly this material, much of it now decades past its best.

Tiles hang on battens, and battens rot quietly wherever moss and overhanging trees keep a roof damp — the covering can sit true while the timber carrying it softens. Once battens fail in numbers, tiles have nothing sound to be fixed to, and renewing the covering as a whole becomes the only lasting course.

In a town as tree-lined as Fleet, roofs on sheltered plots dry slowly, and it is their battens that pay for it.

Mortar bedding along ridges and verges lets go as a system rather than a spot — the same age and the same weather have loosened it everywhere at once. Re-bedding a whole roofline on to worn tiles rarely holds, which is why renewal so often supersedes another round of pointing.

On Fleet’s Edwardian streets, where decorative clay ridge tiles crown many roofs, that bedding is often original — and a century old.

Lofts under older impermeable felt often show black mould and damp timber on the coldest mornings, because moist household air has nowhere to escape. No repair changes what the felt is made of; renewal replaces it with a breathable membrane and gives the roof a ventilation path it never had.

Fleet’s post-war bungalows are the classic case: compact lofts, original felt and mould that returns every winter.

Many period roofs were re-covered decades ago in concrete tiles far heavier than the slate they replaced, and the rafters beneath have sagged under a load they were never sized for. Stripping the heavy covering and renewing it in a suitable material lets the structure recover its line.

Several of Fleet’s Victorian and Edwardian houses were re-covered this way last century, and their timbers have carried the burden since.

The scaffold, the skip and the first deliveries all arrive at times agreed with you, placed where agreed. Your part is small — garden furniture and cars moved clear before the morning we arrive. The rest is ours to manage.

Each morning the forecast decides how much of the old roof is lifted, and nothing comes off that cannot be made weathertight by evening. However the week runs, your home is protected overnight without you having to give it a thought.

If the strip-back uncovers timber or details that need more than the quote allowed for, work there pauses while we show you what we have found and agree a price. Nothing extra happens without your say-so, and nothing surprises the final invoice.

Underlay, battens and the new covering go on in sequence, and the change is visible from the pavement within days — crisp new tile roofing or slate climbing the slopes where the tired covering came off.

We walk round the finished roof with you from the ground, hand over the paperwork and the 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing, and leave with the waste. The scaffold follows within days, and the house is yours again — under a roof that is entirely new.

No two replacements price the same, because the cost sits in the particulars: how much covering must come off and be carried away, what the strip-back asks of the timber beneath, the size and shape of the roof, and what goes back on. So we do not guess — a director surveys the roof free of charge, and a written, itemised quote follows within 48 hours, fixed, with no hidden extras.

That is the point of doing it properly. Fleet’s older streets wear natural slate and clay plain tiles, many with decorative ridges, and a replacement there should read as the same roof renewed — we fit slate roofing in the matching size and colour so the house keeps its place in the street. On the bungalows and newer estates, a modern interlocking tile sits exactly as its neighbours do.

Usually not. Where the new covering is similar in appearance to the old, a like-for-like replacement is normally treated as permitted development and no application is needed. Conservation areas and listed buildings are the exception, and some require consent before the covering or chimney details change. We check this at survey, and the quote allows for anything that applies — no surprises later.

On the right house, few investments settle more. Many Fleet homes are now a century into their first or second covering, and replacement ends the pattern of compounding repair bills in one decision. Just as valuable is what the original roof never had: a breathable roof underlay, sound fixings and ventilation designed in — decades of certainty, on a roof you no longer think about.

Call us or use the contact form, whichever is easier. A director visits at a time that suits, looks at the roof properly and tells you straight if a repair would serve you better — the survey is free either way. If replacement is the answer, your written, itemised quote arrives within 48 hours. We cover the whole of our Fleet service area.