Roofers in Chew Stoke

A cruck frame is built from pairs of curved timbers, often cut from a single bent tree, that stand from low in the wall up to the ridge. They carry the roof directly, so the roof is the frame. Yew Tree Farmhouse is one of very few cruck-built houses in North Somerset, and the tree-ring dating of its crucks to a felling date of 1386 makes the timbers some of the oldest in the village. Manor Farm on Scot Lane, thought to date from 1495, is another of the village's oldest houses, and a building of that age typically relies on heavy structural timber.

Roofs on houses like these are not repaired in the way a Victorian slate roof is. The covering is secondary; the priority is the frame. We go into the loft first and trace where water has been getting in. Staining at the foot of a timber, soft areas that give under a fingernail and fresh frass (the fine powder left by wood-boring beetle) all indicate where the real work lies. A re-covering that ignores them hides a problem for a few seasons and then reveals it.

Weight is the second concern. Replacing a light covering with a heavy one can overload an old frame. Building Regulations approval is needed if the replacement covering weighs 15% or more above the old one, and an older timber structure may need a structural check before we go anywhere near that figure. We therefore prefer to reuse sound original materials, and to restore a covering of the same weight and type.

Both houses are old enough that the question of listed status deserves an early check with B&NES. Whatever the answer, the written survey describes exactly what we propose, so the conversation starts from facts. Our roof replacement page describes how a full re-cover is sequenced when one proves unavoidable.

The Rural Housing Trust development at Salway Close was opened on 4 February 2001, so its roofs have been through a little over twenty winters. Homes of that era were built to modern Building Regulations, with underlay under the tiles and mechanical fixing for ridges and verges, but they have their own pattern of faults.

The first is at the ridge and verge. Where tiles were bedded in mortar, the mortar has often cracked and loosened with thermal movement. BS 5534:2014 no longer accepts mortar on its own as the fixing for a ridge, which is why our repairs add clips or screws. The alternative is dry-fix: caps and clips tested to BS 8612:2018, with no mortar at all. Both routes are covered under ridge and verge repairs.

The second is at junctions with walls. A small porch roof or a bay window canopy meets the main wall at a flashing, and a poorly dressed flashing leaks into the porch or the room beside it. Soffits and fascias are a third: the boards beneath the eaves can warp or crack, and a gap lets birds into the roof space and water behind the gutter.

Gutter brackets on newer homes are usually plastic and spaced further apart than on older cast iron, so a gutter full of leaves or moss can sag between them. A sagging run holds water, which overflows at the lowest point and stains the wall beneath. We straighten and refix the run, add brackets where the span is long, and clear the outlets.

Because the roofs are not old, the jobs tend to be small, local and quick to cost. It is also the clearest example of why an early survey saves money.