New roof, is this acceptable?

Hi there, I have been a regular visitor here but have signed up as I need a bit of advice about my parents roof which was replaced three years ago.

There were several leaks in the roof and two major ones which had been left far too long resulting in rotten rafters around both chimneys to the point that they are offering no support to the tiles as you can see in the pictures. I want to know if this is an acceptable way to leave the roof after paying £4500 for a re-roof (two bed terraced house, hipped roof at front). I know that usually a re-roof is tiles and felt etc and not the roof structure but the roofers were told about it when they quoted for the job and in my opinion it would have taken very little work on their part to replace those rafters while the tiles were off. As the photos show there is now a small wet patch directly underneath this area which has lead me to re-visit it and I wanted to know what others thought before I go and see them and tell them I want them to sort it out properly, especially as it is now leaking!


Any advice would be much appreciated

Cheers
Tom

If it was a proper 're-roof', all the battens would have been replaced, and felt added before the new battens, and any rotted timber replaced.
The rafters have probably rotted due to a defective lead flashing behind the chimney.

Hi tony, thanks for replying. Yes that is where most of the problems were with the flashing along the valley (which is around the chimney) and the bay window i believe. The roof was re-felted and new battens and tiles were fitted. Also the lead was replaced with fibreglass that they moulded in situ (not sure of technical terms for this). These timbers were like this when they assessed and carried out the re-roof so would you say that they should have replaced these?

Thomas Cochrane said:

. Also the lead was replaced with fibreglass that they moulded in situ (not sure of technical terms for this).

Click to expand...

The technical term for that is B O D G E I'm afraid.

If they fibreglassed the valley and used the proper trims to flash to the chimney then that's fine (you should get 20 years from properly done fibreglass as against 100 years for properly done lead) but you need a solid deck for fibreglass and nothing is going to be solid with those rafters flapping in the breeze, if all they did was throw resin and mat up the brickwork then it'll have been leaking for 3 years. (Note for anyone who cares- found when fibreglassing my own roof that the fibreglass upstands from the deck were fine but the mock fibreglass cover flashings needed dead flat walls which are in short supply on my little Project. Lead was much easier and not a lot more expensive)

Out of curiosity, what's with the new 6 x 2 framework? Is the ceiling below sagging or are you beefing up your storage capabilities?- whichever, you need to sort the rafters out first.

But back to your original question- no it isn't acceptable for them to have left it like that but 3 years is a long time so not sure they'll be interested- they'd be interested if they hadn't been paid but think that will be long gone. They obviously had little pride in their work and certainly won't have put in a building notice for the works (if they had you'd have had 250mm of insulation in that loft as a requirement) so think you might have to suck it up or be prepared to chase very hard. Paperwork will be helpful- what they were asked to do, any warranty on materials and workmanship. Telling roofers 'by the way, there's some shonky rafters, can you have a look at them while you're at it' and 'can you include in the quote whatever is needed to repair/replace the rotten joists' are 2 very different beasts.

Repair now is going to be tricky. You can't just jack that wallplate up (you'll definitely crack the fibreglass) and its good odds that something from outside is spiked through all those gash bits of OSB. Unless you want to strip the roof again, about all I could suggest is fixing the wall plate where it is and (if the rafters are rotten) sistering them. Though from the pic they don't look too bad- have you tried stabbing them with a screwdriver? (If the loft was well ventilated then it might only be the surface that has rotted). As for fixing the leak- try your roofers but don't hold your breath, almost certainly the chimney flashing has failed, back gutters are hard work to do properly.

That's fooking awful, if the roof has been completely stripped re-felted, battened and slated then that's just plain unacceptable and hardly surprising it's leaking, that needs taking off sorting and redoing and I wouldn't accept anything else.
For Christ's sake if your any sort of a tradesman and have any integrity and confidence in your work and you find more work than first envisaged at least have the decency to let the client know and explain that it's going to cost a bit more money to do the job properly.

How rotten are they? Poke with a screwdriver. I sistered 3 rafters in my loft. They had some rot just below the ridge board on the top edge of rafter. From an old leak before we lived here or possibly condensation. I just scratched out the rot. Maybe just over an inch deep on top of the 2x4 rafters & treated with wet rot wood hardener. I only sistred for piece of mind. There was still plenty of good timber left. Do the same if there not too bad. M10 coach bolts & some new wood. Tradesman should be doing s**t properly. I guess they were cowboys!

When I said valley I meant the area between the roof and the parapet wall but as i said i don't really know my roofing terminology. In terms of how rotten, they are not too bad its just the ends that have failed where the nails have pulled out under the load, I'm sure shoving those sheets of OSB in there hasn't helped either. My father has the paper work and the 10 year guarantee i believe so we will go and speak to them tomorrow about this as they will have to fix the leak at the very least but with what you have all said I can also argue with some confidence that they should sort the timbers too. Believe it or not they are a reputable local company with an office five minutes from the house. They were professional when they were working and from the out side the roof looks great. Shame about what they left hidden!

The 6x2's are to help with both the ceiling bowing and for a new floor for storage. That's what I've been working on when i saw the leak and the extent of the mess!

Thanks for all your replies

If you've got a 10 year guarantee and they're still in business under the same name then you're in with a chance- leak should definitely not be happening & the rubbish OSB (which I'm assuming they stuffed in to get some sort of straight run on the battens) is not acceptable. Try not to rant and rave at them- will get you nowhere.

Out of curiosity, what did you do about the rafters?

Hi, only just made some progress on this so haven't had any updates. They repeatedly agreed to come and look at the leaks and then didn't get back to us. I eventually went to their office and got an appointment booked in which they didn't turn up for because they "thought it was the following week". They did eventually turn up that week after my mum rang then to make sure they were coming but I was at work. They looked at the roof and said a firework had broken some tiles causing the problems and showed photos. The rafters weren't mentioned as far as I know because I think my parents just wanted to get the leaks fixed and be done with them. They came back the next day and fixed the problem but then broke the satellite dish and didn't tell anyone so that night we discovered there was no TV signal. They then came back and tried to "fix it" but it still wasn't working right and after repeated phone calls to the guy himself over the following week but nothing. My mum had to go to the office and they finally sent an Ariel engineer out to fix it. He said they had broke its mounting so they would have know about it and were obviously hoping it would last a while and they could deny it was them.

Although I can't say they wouldn't do the rafters as they weren't asked this time they were asked when the work was initially done and they didn't replace/repair them so I am certain they would not have done this time. In all honesty I don't want them near the roof again because I don't trust them one bit. Like many cowboys they couldn't be helpful enough when they wanted the work but now they had to use up their time with out payment they were doing everything they could to avoid it. They also talked like they were doing us a massive favour by coming round to sort it which annoyed me.

They were morons it would have taken no more time to do it properly that to add all those bits of packers. I would E.mail those pictures to the company.

How did they "fix" the problem, as despite the rafter issue there is clearly a problem with the back flashing. my guess is it doesn't extend far enough up the roof or far enough either side of the stack