Roofers in Dorset

Roofing in Dorset

Thatch and Purbeck stone are still working roof coverings in Dorset, not museum pieces. The Blackmore and Marshwood vales carry one of the highest densities of thatched buildings in England, mostly in combed wheat reed, and on the Isle of Purbeck the local limestone is still split into presents and laid in diminishing courses on buildings around Corfe and Swanage. Both demand specialists. A thatched roof needs its ridge renewing several times over the life of a coat, and a Purbeck stone roof needs someone who understands how the courses grade and how much weight the frame beneath is actually carrying. Get either wrong on a listed building and you are into enforcement rather than repair.

The conurbation is the other Dorset. Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch grew from Victorian villas into a continuous belt of interwar and post-war suburbia, largely on sandy Poole Formation ground, and that is where most of the county's routine roofing work happens: clay and concrete tile, flat-roofed extensions, dormers, and the rainwater goods that go with a mature tree canopy. Weymouth and Portland face the Channel with no shelter at all, and the whole Jurassic Coast frontage combines salt, gale-force exposure and, in places, unstable ground. Dorset's 150 listed firms average 4.8, the joint highest in this group.

The useful thing to establish early is which category your house falls into, because the two markets barely overlap. If you are thatched or in a conservation area, ask for references on comparable buildings and expect a wait for the right craftsman. If you are in the conurbation with a flat roof or a 1960s tile, get a written specification of the system and its guarantee. And anywhere within a mile or two of the sea, specify non-ferrous fixings.