Old roof tiles and flat bay window roof

[Graemevw]

I wondered if anyone could give me a little general advice.

We are about to buy our first house. Its a semi and was built about 1950.

It had a gable end, concrete tile roof.

Surveyor said there doesnt seem to be any issues in its structure or with the tiles.
All the other houses around are the same, with the same origional tiles.

My question is, although they seem ok now, and so do everyone elses, there 60 years old. How long could you expect them to last?

Hard question to answer i know, but generaly, are we all pushing our luck and they should already have failed, or is it normaly possible for them to last maybe another 15 years or so.

There must be some kind of expected life span?


Also, it has a ground floor bay window with a flat concrete roof. It seems weather tight but surveyor says it will be a cold surface and may be prone to condensation. What can be done here? The ceilings are low, and im tall, so i wondered if there are internal and/or external insulation options.

There is another flat roof upstairs too. Its like a mini dorma, about 10" above the gutter so there is a 10" by maybe 48" flat roof. Not sure how the tiles join to it.
In this room the ceiling has a 45 degree slope along the window wall (does that make sense?)
I was wondering how this could be insulated too.

Thanks.

 

[noseall]

Original Staffy blues are still going strong and some are centuries old.

Admittedly these are clay though.

Roof coating companies and the less scrupulous roofing companies will tell you that they will be porous after say 50 years.

Blarney!

Unless you have a catastrophic amount of tiles that are breaking or failing then just replace and repair after strong winds etc.

However, if you are likely to be engaging in major structural work, including scaffold etc, then it may pay you to replace the tiles, or at least the lathe and felt, at this stage.

 

[Graemevw]

Ok, thanks.

As for the flat roof, what can be done?

When we were working on a tower block, where the concrete slab floors extended out for the balconies, we had to isulate the slabs to stop cold traveling into the rooms.
They were insulated with 1.5" marmox boards (foam with a thin cement resin coating on each side).

Would something like that be worth bonding to the outside of the slab, then maybe felt over them?