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A roofer working out of Yeovil covers two very different kinds of building in the same week. In the town and the villages around it there is the honey-coloured limestone quarried at Ham Hill a few miles west — soft, beautifully weathered, and unforgiving of a modern fixing — carrying clay pantiles, stone tiles and, in the villages, a good deal of thatch. On the edge of town there are the industrial and distribution estates: large-span flat and profiled-metal roofs over premises that are working underneath you.
South Somerset is open country and the prevailing south-westerlies come in with little to slow them, so storm damage arrives in concentrated bursts and temporary coverings have to be fixed as though a gale is due, because it often is. Between the storms, the everyday work is pantile and stone-tile repair, verges and ridges, lead flashings into soft stone, and rainwater goods on buildings that predate them.
The exposure to insure is a combination of the obvious and the ignored. The obvious is the fall. The ignored is heat: hot work near a thatched roof, or on a large commercial flat roof over stock and production, is where a manageable job becomes a total loss. Apex is a Bristol-based commercial broker and we arrange cover that reflects how the trade actually works, placed by a named broker who will present your risk properly to insurers who understand it.
Ham Hill stone. The local building stone is a honey-coloured limestone quarried at Ham Hill, a few miles west of the town, and it is everywhere in the older fabric of south Somerset. It weathers into a furrowed surface, it is soft compared with the stone a roofer might be used to elsewhere, and it does not always take a modern fixing or a scaffold tie the way harder masonry does. Damage to it is expensive to make good, and matching means sourcing rather than ordering.
Clay pantiles and stone tiles. The traditional coverings on this stock are heavy or fragile or both. Stone tiles put real load on a roof structure; old clay pantiles break underfoot and are difficult to match. Either way, a proportion of what you walk on will need replacing, and that should be agreed in writing before the job rather than argued about after it.
Thatch in the villages. Thatched roofs are a normal feature of the villages around Yeovil, and they change the terms on which any heat can be used. A thatch fire is very rarely partial, insurers commonly restrict or exclude hot works on and adjacent to thatch, and chimney and flashing work on a thatched property has to be treated as a distinct risk that must be disclosed rather than absorbed into a general description of your trade.
Industrial and distribution roofs. The estates on the edge of town, serving long-established engineering and manufacturing employers, carry large-span roofs in profiled metal, built-up felt and single ply. Fragile rooflights and older sheeting are the classic serious hazard, hot works are routine, and the client is trading beneath you, so a leak during a strip damages stock and output rather than decoration.
Exposed south-westerlies. Open country and a prevailing wind off the Bristol Channel and the Blackdown Hills mean storm work arrives in bursts, temporary coverings are tested properly, and the pressure to work in marginal conditions is highest exactly when access is most dangerous.
Working at Height Regulations 2005 — the regulation that sits behind almost every roofing job, and the first thing an underwriter asks about.
Hot-works permit and fire-watch conditions from insurers wherever torch-on, bitumen boilers, hot-air welding or lead burning are used.
Fragile-surface duties: rooflights, fibre-cement sheets and old glazing are a leading cause of fatal falls in roofing, and cover terms usually reflect how you manage them.
CDM 2015 duties on larger contracts — on many domestic re-roofs you are the only contractor, which puts more of the duty on you than people expect.
Competent-person scheme evidence (NFRC, CompetentRoofer and similar) where you hold it, and Building Regulations notification for a re-roof that changes more than a limited proportion of the covering.
Scaffolding: a design or a compliant standard configuration, handover documentation, and a licence from the highway authority wherever it stands on a pavement or road.
A gale lifts temporary sheeting on an open roof and rain damages the property below — contract works and public liability, depending on what was damaged.
Heat used near thatch, or on a chimney serving a thatched property, causes a fire that destroys the roof entirely.
Scaffold ties or fixings damage soft Ham Hill stone that must be repaired or replaced with matching material.
Stone or clay tiles break during a repair and cannot be matched, turning a repair into a larger re-cover.
An operative steps onto a fragile rooflight on an industrial roof — employers’ liability responds, with RIDDOR and regulator involvement likely.
Torch-on work on a commercial flat roof ignites insulation beneath the covering above a working production area.
Yes, before you take it on. Thatch is treated as a severe and distinct fire risk, and many wordings restrict or exclude hot works on or adjacent to it. Even chimney flashing work on a thatched roof falls into that category, so it has to be disclosed rather than assumed to be included.
It is softer than it looks and it is local, which means damage is both easy to cause and expensive to put right in matching material. Fixings, scaffold ties and lead detailing all need more care, and a written condition record before you start protects you from inheriting somebody else’s weathering.
They are looked at more closely, mainly for hot works and fragile surfaces. Describing exactly what you do — single ply, built-up felt, sheeting, liner replacement — gets a better outcome than a general description, because the risk profiles genuinely differ.
They should be disclosed. Emergency work in bad weather is when access is improvised and third-party damage is most likely, and temporary coverings are the point at which contract works cover earns its place. An underwriter would much rather see this described than discover it in a claim.
Assume some will, and say so in writing before starting. On old clay and stone coverings a proportion of breakage is unavoidable; agreeing that in advance turns it into a pricing item rather than a liability dispute.
Yes — it is legally required if you employ anyone, and labour-only sub-contractors working under your direction count.
Tell us about your business and we’ll place it on the specialist market — or leave your number and a named broker calls you back, usually the same working day.
