Bennetts Water Gardens
Eight-acre garden in Chickerell holding national collections of water lilies, with a Monet-style Japanese bridge built in 1999.
Learn more about Bennetts Water Gardens on Google MapsRoofers In Chickerell
Newer house, but the roof's already giving trouble?
Roof repairs, re-roofs and roofline work for Chickerell's newer estates, the old village, Charlestown and Buckland Ripers
We're roofers based in Weymouth, about ten minutes up the road from Chickerell, and a lot of what we get called to here is younger than you'd expect. The town grew by roughly a third after 1991, and around 546 homes were finished in the twenty years to 2017, a big chunk of them at Putton Lane. Those roofs aren't old. Some were put together in a hurry, though, and loose verge clips, ridge units working free and gutters that spill over in a downpour make up much of our Chickerell diary. We also look after the older houses in the Chickerell Conservation Area, at Charlestown and out at Buckland Ripers.
Free Roofing Quote In Chickerell
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About Chickerell
A young town built around an old brickmaking village
Chickerell was only granted town status in 2001, which is why it gets called one of Dorset's newest towns. It lies on the western side of Weymouth, with the Fleet lagoon and Chesil Beach beyond it, and the parish takes in Charlestown and Buckland Ripers as well as the original village. Since the late 1990s it has filled out quickly. About 6,280 people lived here at the 2021 census, and a good share of their homes have gone up within living memory of most of the people in them.
Before the estates came the bricks. Two large works, at Crook Hill and Putton Lane, dug Oxford Clay from the 1850s until the 1960s, and Chickerell red brick appears in plenty of later Victorian building around here. The old village core became a conservation area in 1990. For a roofer, that splits the town neatly. Older roofs in the village have usually been patched by several hands over the decades. The newer estates are typically roofed in concrete interlocking tile with factory-made ridge and verge systems, and those fail in their own particular ways.
1,000+
Roofing projects completed
5★
Every review we have is five stars
10 yrs
Guarantee on roof replacements
Free
Roof surveys and written quotes
What Chickerell homeowners usually ring us about
Roof Repairs
Verge caps shed after a blow, ridge units lifting, a tile cracked by a ladder during snagging. We fix the faults newer Chickerell roofs develop, and the older ones in the village too.
Learn more about roof repairs in Chickerell →
Roof Replacement
When an older roof in the conservation area or out at Buckland Ripers has had one patch too many, we strip it back and rebuild it to current fixing standards.
Learn more about roof replacement in Chickerell →
Guttering, Fascias & Soffits
Plenty of estate-built houses in Chickerell came with slim gutters that can't keep pace with a heavy shower. We re-align, add outlets or upsize where that genuinely helps.
Learn more about guttering, fascias & soffits in Chickerell →More services in Chickerell
What roofing in Chickerell actually involves
Chickerell's roofs divide roughly into the recent and the historic, and each kind has its own habits. These are the things we plan around in this town.
Developer roofs and their snags
Houses built at pace sometimes leave site with small jobs undone: a verge clip never fitted, a ridge unit not screwed down, a hole in the underlay from an aerial bracket. We find and finish what the snagging list missed.
Dry-fix ridges and verges
Plastic verge caps and dry ridge kits took over from mortar on many newer roofs. Fitted well, they're good. But clips perish in strong sun and units creep, and Wyke Regis, the nearest weather station, logs about 1,900 hours of sunshine a year.
Gutters sized for a drizzle
Narrow gutters on a long estate roof can overflow in a cloudburst and soak the brickwork below. We check the fall, the outlet positions and the capacity before swapping anything, because sometimes an extra downpipe is all it takes.
Wind coming in off the Fleet
South of the houses there's mostly open ground before the Fleet, so a south-westerly gale has little to slow it down. BS 5534:2014 requires single-lap tiles to be mechanically fixed, and we check that yours actually are.
The conservation area in the old village
Chickerell's original core was designated a conservation area in 1990. Like-for-like repairs are normally fine, but changing how a roof looks can need consent from Dorset Council, so we talk that through before any materials are ordered.
Close enough to pop back
We're roughly ten minutes from Chickerell by road. That makes a return visit no trouble at all, whether it's a second look after a wet and windy night or checking a repair has settled before we call the job finished.
"Most of the 'new house, already leaking' calls we get in Chickerell come down to a verge or ridge that was never properly fixed down in the first place."
Our guarantee
Ten years on a new roof, written down and signed
When we replace a roof in Chickerell, the paperwork you're handed at the end will, on all but a handful of unusual jobs, include a 10 year guarantee on the work. If yours is one of the exceptions, you'll know at quote stage, not after. It names your address, says what was done and is dated the day we sign the roof off. It covers the installation itself, meaning the battens, membrane, fixings, the slates or tiles and the junctions where the roof meets walls and chimneys. If any of that lets water in through a fault in how it went on, we come back and fix it without charging you.
A guarantee that long only makes sense if the roof is built properly underneath, so it shapes the job from day one. Every slate or tile is mechanically fixed to the current British Standard rather than relying on its own weight, which matters on a stretch of coast where the wind arrives with nothing in its way. Breathable membrane goes on before the battens. Valleys, abutments and chimneys get proper lead or a tested dry-fix system, never a smear of mortar that cracks in its third winter.
Materials carry their own manufacturer cover on top, and that differs from product to product. Your paperwork says which one applies to your roof.
10
Year guarantee on roof replacements
1,000+
Roofing projects completed
Signed paperwork at handover, with photos of the roof taken before, during and after.
Our process
How we handle a roofing job in Chickerell
- 1
We come and look, free
We drive over from Weymouth, go up where it's safe and photograph what we find. On a newer house we also ask roughly when it was built, because that hints at which ridge and verge system to expect.
- 2
A quote you can follow
You get a written, itemised price with each job listed on its own line, so the verge work and the gutter work are costed separately. If a fault looks like the builder's to put right, we'll say so.
- 3
Scaffold and access
Lots of Chickerell houses have their own drive, so a tower or scaffold can often stand on private ground, out of everyone's way. Where it has to go on the pavement, we plan it around the footpath and your neighbours' doors.
- 4
Lift and look underneath
We take off the affected tiles, verge units or ridge and check the battens and membrane below. Newer roofs sometimes hide torn underlay or short battens that nobody saw once the tiles went on.
- 5
Put it back with fixings
Tiles go back nailed or clipped as BS 5534 asks, ridges are screwed or clipped down, and verges get a proper mechanical fixing. In the conservation area we match the existing materials as closely as we can.
- 6
Check from the street and the loft
When the work is done we walk the roof again, look at it from the pavement, and go into the loft if you're happy for us to, making sure no daylight shows through where it shouldn't.
- 7
Tidy up and talk you through it
We clear the drive, empty our debris out of the gutters and take the old material away. Then we show you before and after photos, so you know exactly what's up there now.
What to do in Chickerell
The Fleet Lagoon & Chesil Beach
The Fleet is a shallow brackish lagoon behind 18-mile Chesil Beach, protected as an SSSI and part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.
Learn more about The Fleet Lagoon & Chesil Beach on Google Maps
Fleet Old Church
Only the chancel of East Fleet's old church survived the Great Storm of 1824; it holds Mohun family memorials linked to the novel Moonfleet.
Learn more about Fleet Old Church on Google MapsFind us working in Chickerell
Reviews
What customers around Chickerell say
More than a thousand roofing jobs finished, and every review customers have left us is five stars.
Those reviews are on their way onto this page. Until they land, ask us for photos of recent jobs near you in Chickerell when we come out to quote - seeing a finished roof on a house like yours tells you more than any star rating.
Roofing prices in Chickerell
Where a Chickerell house has a clear drive for a tower or scaffold, access costs stay modest, and fixing verges or ridges on a newer roof usually sits towards the bottom of our £150 to £1,500 repair range. Prices rise in the old village, where sourcing matching materials takes longer, and on any roof where a missed snag has quietly let water into the battens for several winters.
Questions from Chickerell homeowners
Do I need planning permission to work on my roof in Chickerell?
For like-for-like repairs, or re-roofing in materials that look similar, usually not. Dorset Council is the planning authority. Permitted development rights are narrower in the Chickerell Conservation Area, which covers the old village core and was designated in 1990, and listed buildings need listed building consent for work that affects their character. We're not aware of any Article 4 direction covering house alterations in Chickerell. Chesil Beach and the Fleet sit inside the Dorset National Landscape, so on the southern edge of town we check the boundary before quoting.
My Chickerell house is only a few years old. Why is the roof already leaking?
Nearly always it's how the roof was finished, not its age. Verge clips left off, ridge units not fully fixed, or underlay damaged during the build are the usual causes. If your home is still within the builder's early defects period, report it to them first. If not, we can put it right.
Are the plastic dry verges on newer houses worth keeping?
Generally, yes. Dry verge systems stop mortar crumbling out of the gable edge, which was the old headache. They let you down when clips are missing or the plastic has gone brittle in the sun, and both are inexpensive to sort compared with repointing a mortar verge every few years.
Do you work on the older houses in the village and at Buckland Ripers?
Yes. We repair and re-roof older properties right across the parish, including inside the conservation area. We don't do thatch, though, so a thatched cottage would need a specialist thatcher.
Areas we cover from Chickerell
- Roof Repairs Dorchester
- Roof Replacement Dorchester
- Roof Repairs Portland
- Roof Replacement Portland
- Roof Repairs Chickerell
- Roof Replacement Chickerell
- Roof Repairs Bridport
- Roof Replacement Bridport
- Roof Repairs Wareham
- Roof Replacement Wareham
- Roof Repairs Wool
- Roof Replacement Wool
- Roof Repairs Swanage
- Roof Replacement Swanage
- Roof Repairs Upton
- Roof Replacement Upton
Got a roof in Chickerell that needs looking at?
Tell us what you've spotted, a verge cap on the lawn or a damp patch on the landing ceiling, and we'll come over from Weymouth to look at it for free. You'll have a written price before anything starts.