Hello!
I'm new to the forum so please forgive possible topic duplication.
I recently contracted a local roofer (via checkatrade - got 3 quotes) to strip, felt and slate my 1930's bungalow which previously had french clay interlocking tiles leaking all over the place.
I opted for natural slate as it is lightweight and looks much better than concrete tiles.
The roofer has almost finished (after being delayed by the awful weather) so today I went up onto the scaffold to inspect the work. Unfortunately the results are frankly shocking. The house is over 85 years old and I appreciate that the roof structure isn't going to be true and flat. However, the newly slated roof is humped and dipped in various places and the majority of the slates do not sit flat, kick up (by more than an inch) and some slates are already broken, chipped and don't butt up laterally (pictured below)
Am I wrong in thinking a competent roofer is able to compensate for uneven substrate with proper measurement and workmanship (to a certain degree)? Isn't the roofer supposed to sort the slates prior to slating? Isn't the roofer supposed to adjust the battens to compensate for unevenness?
The slates around the velux are kicked up so much I think they would be ripped off by a strong gust of wind. I'm really at a loss as to what to do, because I'm pretty sure he will say its because of the 'old roof' structure and there's nothing he can do (although he didn't mention it would be a problem before). As you can imagine this isn't a cheap job and I don't want to pay the balance until I am satisfied.
I would be really grateful for anyone's opinion as this is really stressing me out.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
I'm new to the forum so please forgive possible topic duplication.
I recently contracted a local roofer (via checkatrade - got 3 quotes) to strip, felt and slate my 1930's bungalow which previously had french clay interlocking tiles leaking all over the place.
I opted for natural slate as it is lightweight and looks much better than concrete tiles.
The roofer has almost finished (after being delayed by the awful weather) so today I went up onto the scaffold to inspect the work. Unfortunately the results are frankly shocking. The house is over 85 years old and I appreciate that the roof structure isn't going to be true and flat. However, the newly slated roof is humped and dipped in various places and the majority of the slates do not sit flat, kick up (by more than an inch) and some slates are already broken, chipped and don't butt up laterally (pictured below)
Am I wrong in thinking a competent roofer is able to compensate for uneven substrate with proper measurement and workmanship (to a certain degree)? Isn't the roofer supposed to sort the slates prior to slating? Isn't the roofer supposed to adjust the battens to compensate for unevenness?
The slates around the velux are kicked up so much I think they would be ripped off by a strong gust of wind. I'm really at a loss as to what to do, because I'm pretty sure he will say its because of the 'old roof' structure and there's nothing he can do (although he didn't mention it would be a problem before). As you can imagine this isn't a cheap job and I don't want to pay the balance until I am satisfied.
I would be really grateful for anyone's opinion as this is really stressing me out.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.