Alongside that you've got tight Victorian terraces in the two cities, brick-and-flint cottages on the chalk downland, and timber-framed and rendered property through the New Forest and the Meon and Test valleys. We work on all of it.
A county of ageing post-war roofs
Interlocking concrete tiles were the go-to covering for four decades of Hampshire housebuilding, and a good many of them have now outlasted the service life they were designed for. The tile itself can look fine from the ground while the bitumen felt underneath has gone brittle, the ridge mortar has cracked through, and the nails holding the perimeter have corroded away.
That's often why a Hampshire enquiry starts as a repair and ends up being a re-roofing conversation. Once the same roof has needed three visits in three winters, you're really just paying for a replacement that's coming anyway — the repairs are only delaying it.
Finlock country
Concrete gutter blocks were used a lot in Hampshire's 1950s and 60s housing. If you've got damp along the top of upstairs walls, cold strips beneath the ceiling, or mould that keeps coming back in bedroom corners, the concrete gutter built into the wall head is the first thing we'd want to rule out — and lining it, which many houses here have already had done, only ever treats half the problem.
Cities, terraces and access
Working on a terrace in Portsmouth or the older parts of Southampton is as much about logistics as it is about roofing: shared rooflines, no rear access, permit parking and scaffold that has to be agreed with neighbours. We think through all of that at survey stage so the price you're quoted is the price you pay.
Solent-side properties also take a fair bit more weather than people expect. Wind funnelling along the water can lift ridge and verge details on exposed elevations in Gosport, Hayling Island and Lee-on-the-Solent much as it would on an open coast.
Rural and protected property
The New Forest, the South Downs National Park and the county's conservation areas all bring their own constraints on materials and detailing. Clay peg tiles, natural slate and brick-and-flint elevations need repairing in kind, so we quote accordingly rather than swapping in the cheapest modern equivalent.
