Suspicious about work carried out...

[divingdave24]

Hi there,

I have a quick question about some roof work that I need a bit of advice on please.

About a year ago we had an chimney stack removed from inside our house. It went up through the middle of the house and into the loft. Inside the loft the chimney stack stopped and joined up to a metal exhaust pipe which then went out through the roof. This exhaust pipe was left in by the builder who removed our chimney and we have only just got round to having it removed.

A roofing company came and removed the exhaust pipe from the roof, which obviously left a square hole in our roof which was about a foot square. The roofers fitted a couple of batons over the hole and then hung some new roof tiles.

When they finished the job I went in the garden to look at the work and it all seemed fine - nice and neat. Then I went up into the loft with him to inspect the work. I expected to see some roofing felt from the inside but all I could see was the back of the new roof tiles and small amounts of daylight coming from underneath them.

I pointed this out to him and he said that was perfectly normal and that people didn't use felt these days.

Can someone tell me if this is true please? Should I see the backs of the tiles, be able to see traces of daylight, and is it right for him not to have used felt?

Hope someone can offer some advice please...

Cheers,
Dave

 

[masona]

Can someone tell me if this is true please? Should I see the backs of the tiles, be able to see traces of daylight, and is it right for him not to have used felt?

If you already have roofing felts then it's unprofessional. If you have a broken tiles above then the rain will come in where the roofing felt is missing although it's very rare these days but still unprofessional.

The idea of the roofing felt is to collect the rain from a broken tile onto the felt and straight down to your gutter preventing internal damage.

They are still loads of pre-war properties without roofing felts which does give good ventilation though!

 

[divingdave24]

Thanks for the reply.

The house was built around 1932 and there is existing felt on our roof. You can see the cut edges of the felt where the old square hole was originally cut away for the old exhaust pipe.

The roofing guy said our felt was knackered though and wouldn't do its job any longer.

He also said that if he was doing a new roof these days he wouldn't use felt at all. From inside the loft you would see all the batons and the backs of all the tiles. Is that true? Surely its sensible to use felt?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[masona]

He also said that if he was doing a new roof these days he wouldn't use felt at all.

Yeeeehhaaa, only cowboys do this, hasn't got a horse has he?

From inside the loft you would see all the batons and the backs of all the tiles. Is that true?

Well, that's what it will look like without the felts

Surely its sensible to use felt?

Yes, also keep the roof warmer as well.