Oh no is this a cowboy roofer?

[hashmo]

Hi.
I recently employed a TrustATrader company to re roof my single storey detached outhouse after encountering water leaking through the soffits.
They took off the tiles and then changed the ripped felt and rotted battens for new ones and then put the old tiles back on. They had to buy some replacement tiles where the old ones were cracked. After I paid and they left I climbed up onto the roof to cut back the ivy and I noticed something didn’t look right.
In a certain area 4 rows up from the front edge the tiles were not interlocked properly leaving gaps under the tiles.
On closer inspection it looks like a single tile in the middle of the front row has been cut down by 2 inches to get it to fit and then this has caused the rows above to all be out of sync and not interlock properly.
It’s almost as if two people have both tiled the first row from the opposite outside edges and tried to meet in the middle and failed and so had to cut a tile down to fit.
I contacted the company and these were the responses:
1. “A tile has popped out, has anyone been walking on the roof? Don’t worry we will pop it back in tomorrow”
Then:
2. “Don’t worry there are two layers of felt under the tiles so there won’t be any leaks as the felt will stop it even if they don’t interlock properly”
3. “The underlying structure of the roof is a bit uneven so we had to cut a tile down in width in the first row to get things to fit”.

I really think the first three rows of tiles all need to be lifted and re-tiled from the middle out to the edge and interlocking everything properly as they do it.
But I keep getting the excuses above.

Am I right to be putting my foot down and insisting they fix it before starting any other work around my property?

 

[Alastairreid]

Trust a trader and similar fee paying sites are self serving with no interest in the quality of so called trades people they have on their books.
The people who tiled your roof are not competent roofers.
Going by the pics the whole lot has to come off imo.

 

[DAZB]

Hope you haven't paid them for that abomination. They are NOT roofers pulling a stunt like that and that is shockingly bad work. I would send them packing and use their price to pay a real roofer.

 

[hashmo]

Trust a trader and similar fee paying sites are self serving with no interest in the quality of so called trades people they have on their books.
The people who tiled your roof are not competent roofers.
Going by the pics the whole lot has to come off imo.

Thanks for the feedback Alastairreid.
When you say the whole lot, do you mean the first three rows or the entire roof?
Everything above those first three rows seems to be interlocking fine (but I bow to your experience on this)

 

[datarebal]

limited info in the pictures. true its a mess. but the problem is likely new tiles into old roof, plus a few with corners off
the new tiles are a slightly different size. you will get away with two side by side in one course. easiest thing here is put the new tiles in a vertical line and use the ones you take out to fill the gaps..

 

[Alastairreid]

 

[DAZB]

I agree the whole roof is a bit of a mess and the wavy lines say it all. When you look up the diagonals on photo's 3 & 4 you should see a clean line of sight but there is no line and it is all scattered everywhere. The coursing of each row is all over too with some course having a vastly different lap to others so it would probably be easier to strip the tiles off and do it right.

 

[hashmo]

Oh I see what you mean about it being wavy .
What a mess I feel like such an idiot.
I will attach a photo of the entire new roof. I will also attach a photo of the “before” when it leaked but at least the original tiles were laid in a straight line

 

[hashmo]

Ah I see what has happened. The new tiles are just under 230mm wide (Marley?) and the old ones were just over 225mm wide (Redland?). That’s probably why the wave pattern is being caused since he used new tiles in the front two rows. And probably explains this overhang at the front left edge

 

[hashmo]

I wrote to the roofer to address these points but all I got back was this:

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Roof, what we have done with the tiles that Roof is fine I don’t need redoing and it is waterproof now”

Thanks for all your feedback guys. Much appreciate you helping out a novice at this. I better start saving for a new roof! And searching for a better roofer!

 

[^woody^]

Get in touch with your council's trading standards/consumer protection team.

 

[hashmo]

Thanks woody. I'm not sure there is much I can do though.

You see the underlying roof joists (built 20 years ago) were always a little uneven, so the roofer did tell me that there would again be slight undulations even when he finished the re-roofing. The old roof had these undulations. But at least all the tiles on old roof interlocked properly and vertical rows of tiles were straight (not wavy) and didn't have an overhang on one side.

When the old tiles and felt were taken off, he noticed that the end of one of the joists hadn't been fixed&positioned correctly and had sunk down, so he lifted and bolted it into place (for an additional £750 - pricey i know) and said this would help a bit with the undulations (but not get rid of it entirely).

But because the roofer has now used the wrong size tile for the replacement tiles (which make up the entire first two rows at the bottom and also a big area on the left side) I have not only ended up with the undulations again (which is fine because we didn't touch the other joists so I knew these would be back somewhat), but I now have badly interlocking tiles in one area and an overhang on one side and vertical wavy lines too.
There's about 60 tiles in a row, if each tile is 5mm bigger than the old ones, that's a 30cm offset between a row of new tiles and the row of old tiles above - no wonder they were cutting tiles down in the middle of the row and overhanging on one end.

Trouble is the roofer is claiming that all these 4 problems with the re-roof are just because of the existing uneven joists and not anything related to his tile choice or his method of laying the new tiles. DAZB was right, he should have laid the new ones in vertical rows instead. Or better just chosen the right sized replacement tiles. He's claiming he's done his job because 'its waterproof now and not leaking like it used to'. I think I need to just accept my mistake of not going with a roofer with better experience of how to select and incorporate new tiles into a re-roof job.

I think I'm going to save up and just get a GreenCoat PLX roof - tiles just give me PTSD now lol

 

[foxhole]

Complaints Process

It is a rare occurrence, but if you have been let down by a TrustATrader member we are here to help. Read the TrustATrader Complaints Policy here.

www.trustatrader.com

 

[DAZB]

Thanks woody. I'm not sure there is much I can do though.

You see the underlying roof joists (built 20 years ago) were always a little uneven, so the roofer did tell me that there would again be slight undulations even when he finished the re-roofing. The old roof had these undulations. But at least all the tiles on old roof interlocked properly and vertical rows of tiles were straight (not wavy) and didn't have an overhang on one side.

When the old tiles and felt were taken off, he noticed that the end of one of the joists hadn't been fixed&positioned correctly and had sunk down, so he lifted and bolted it into place (for an additional £750 - pricey i know) and said this would help a bit with the undulations (but not get rid of it entirely).

But because the roofer has now used the wrong size tile for the replacement tiles (which make up the entire first two rows at the bottom and also a big area on the left side) I have not only ended up with the undulations again (which is fine because we didn't touch the other joists so I knew these would be back somewhat), but I now have badly interlocking tiles in one area and an overhang on one side and vertical wavy lines too.
There's about 60 tiles in a row, if each tile is 5mm bigger than the old ones, that's a 30cm offset between a row of new tiles and the row of old tiles above - no wonder they were cutting tiles down in the middle of the row and overhanging on one end.

Trouble is the roofer is claiming that all these 4 problems with the re-roof are just because of the existing uneven joists and not anything related to his tile choice or his method of laying the new tiles. DAZB was right, he should have laid the new ones in vertical rows instead. Or better just chosen the right sized replacement tiles. He's claiming he's done his job because 'its waterproof now and not leaking like it used to'. I think I need to just accept my mistake of not going with a roofer with better experience of how to select and incorporate new tiles into a re-roof job.

I think I'm going to save up and just get a GreenCoat PLX roof - tiles just give me PTSD now lol

It was Datarebal that mentioned the new ones in a line and is an option but don't blame yourself for the terrible work of a "roofer" that should know how to do the job, and to find out he charged £750 for altering one rafter is basically theft. I would report him and name and shame as he will move on to another job and probably end up doing the same. Just out of interest how much was the whole job ?

 

[Notch7]

this:

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Roof, what we have done with the tiles that Roof is fine I don’t need redoing and it is waterproof now”

At least he is consistent, the quality of his grammar matches his roofing