Roofers in Hinton Charterhouse

Listed building consent is a separate permission from planning consent, as B&NES points out on its own pages. Consent is needed for work that changes the character of a listed building, and the roof is a large part of that character. In the council's own words, unauthorised work is a criminal offence, which is why we treat the consent question as the opening step and not an afterthought.

In practice the line tends to fall between repair and alteration. Replacing a few failed slates with matching ones, refixing a lifted lead flashing or repointing a stack in lime sits at the repair end, and many owners find the council has little to say about work like that. Changing the covering, adding a roof window, rebuilding a chimney or altering the roof structure sits at the other end, and those are the jobs where you want a conversation with the conservation team before a price is agreed. We are in no position to rule on your house in law, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can do is describe the work precisely: the material, the size, the method and the reason.

Not every old building in the village is listed, and a listed neighbour does not make yours listed. The reverse also holds, since a house that looks modest from the road may be on the list. Checking takes a few minutes: B&NES holds the records, and Historic England keeps the national list. If you are unsure, ask before you let anyone strip a roof.

Building Regulations ask a different question again. The Planning Portal sets limits on how much of the envelope and the roof a re-covering may touch before approval applies, and a new covering at least 15% heavier than the old one also brings it in. If notice is needed we deal with it, through the council's building control team or privately through a registered approver, and we explain the position without trade jargon before the work begins. The detail of what we repair, and how, is set out on our roof repairs page.

Hinton Charterhouse's Grade II listed former school is now a private residence, and it stands for a type of building we see across the area: a structure designed for one purpose, converted to another, with a roof that was never meant for a living space. School roofs usually cover a wide span with strong timbers, and the conversion adds new demands such as insulation, internal finishes and bedrooms under the slopes.

These conversions put a roof under a different kind of stress. Insulation placed tight against the underside of the covering can cut ventilation, so warm moist air from the house condenses in the roof void and the timbers stay damp. The sign is usually inside: a musty smell in an upstairs room, dark spotting along the ceiling edge, or timber that looks dry on top and dark underneath. The cause is often not a leak at all, so replacing the covering would not help. We look at the build-up first, from the plasterboard through the insulation to the underlay, and only then decide whether the fault is the covering, the ventilation or both.

Where a larger part of the roof is renewed, the thermal side may come into play. Part L sets limits for the roof element of an existing home when it is replaced, and any new element should perform at least as well as the one removed. Whichever body signs off the work, whether the council or a private registered building control approver, can say what applies to your roof, and we will tell you which route fits before the work starts.

The same thinking applies to barn conversions, chapels and agricultural buildings anywhere around the village. They have long runs of rafters, big gutters and valleys where two slopes meet. A valley, where the planes of two slopes meet in an internal angle, collects the run-off from both, and on a converted building that can be a very large area. If you have a converted building with a tired roof, a visit with photographs of your own roof, and a fixed written price, is the best starting point, and our chimney repairs work often goes hand in hand with it.