Leaking roof - Please help

[ziggy1979]

Hi Everybody

We have a Victorian conversion flat (top floor) with a picthed roof. A few slates have been sliding off the roof (we have found them downstairs and hanging off the guttering). Also water has been coming in and when you turn the lights in the loft off you can see light in various places.

It looks like its the original roof. It has no felt and a number of the slates are white (i.e. like salt patches) (many of these slates are in groups). A couple of the roof battons seem to have some wet rot but this is maybe only for about 200mm.

Please note I have been patching it up with silico, gripfill and expanding polyurethan foam as the other neighbours have not been wanting to fix the roof.

The neighbours have finally agreed to have a roofer come round to have a look at it and quote for the work but we are concerned he might either rip us off and/or not do a good job.

The roofer recommended a new roof (i.e. all slates come off, felt is put down, brand new battons and spanish slates). He reckons the roof will need about 5000 slates and he might be able to reuse about 300 of the ones currently there - we are still waiting for a quote which should come next week. He didn't let up on a ball park figure but said it would be more than £20k but less than £50k. (we know that he is fixing our neighbours place and he has charged them £1500+VAT for an 8ft scaffold tower which is about 40ft high - our buildings are pretty tall).

I would like to know a bit about what's needed to make sure he doesn't do a crap job or quote excessively:

1. Does plywood need to go under the felt?

2. Is it just one layer of felt thats needed or different layers of different kinds of felt. If you so can you please recommend brands for each and likely cost per m2.

3. The kind of money we can expect to reasonably pay for spanish slates. Does anyone know where we can buy them wholesale (e.g. the battons I will be buying from a timbers merchant I have been using for many years now).

I am very grateful for any help, advice you can give. If there is anything else I have not asked but should be made aware of please do let me know.

Thanks a lot!

Zigs

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[bendylow]

bloody ell,where do you live,buck house.
your roofer has certainly left himself a little margin for error hasn't he!
the scaffold price seems to be a little bit high(i know you pay a bit more for living in london).i'm having an identical scaffold erected shortly,the job site is 1 1/2 hrs by car from where i live,my scaffolder lives 10 mins from me,he'll be going in a lorry,the scaffold will be up for 4 weeks and it's costing me £600 inc vat.as for your roof i would suggest you take a rough guess at the size of your roof,take pictures from all the angles that you can,and count how many course of slates there are from the gutter to the ridge,then armed with all this info,attack your nearest roofing merchant.they should be able to give you a ball park figure on the cost of materials.i know your roofer is going to add a bit for his time and trouble,but it seems to me he adds a fair whack going on the cost of the scaffold,then again london prices might be astronomical and he might be the cheapest around,or you've got a roof the size of the new wembley.

 

[robbie9]

hi
i think the price your neighbour paid for the scaffold tower may have just bought the roofer a new one lol...check the price of a tower on the net get some idea of what a new one costs
where i work we have a tower which slightly smaller but not by much and we put it up for about £50 it only takes half hour to an hour to do
im shocked if only 300 slates would be reused out of the amount on the roof i think he will tell you that and bill you for a lot more of the slates you already own or reuse them on another job...but this is difficult for me to say with out seeing the roof
and if he is putting felt down you only need one layer, get a price from the local builders yard, you only need a rough idea of the area
i think you need to get several quotes
and if that is london prices i think i will move from lincolnshire to london and retire next yeaR

 

[wombats]

1. Does plywood need to go under the felt?

No

2. Is it just one layer of felt thats needed or different layers of different kinds of felt.

Yes it is just one layer.

Why is he using Spaninsh slate and not Welsh?

 

[Nige F]

Hey, Gringo whya you ask so many soddinga questions Mebbe he gotta place in Polaris World

 

[noseall]

sarking boards or plywood is only used in scotland.


i think!

5000 slates! seems like an awfully BIG roof to me

 

[joe-90]

Why doesn't he use synthetic slate? A job that size in Notts would cost about £15K