new house may be slipping through our fingers

[kirstickle]

Well we had some builders look at the roof yesterday, and its not good news. Apparently there is evidence that the roof has been redone quite recently, but whoever did it just put the roof tiles back on without any felt underneath (why would anyone do that???). The builders are friends of ours so we know they are not bullsh***ng us when they say that all the tiles need to come off, felt put on, and tiles put back on at a cost of around £10k. Even though it wasn't a windy day, it was blowing a gale through the roof and driving rain in through the gaps. They said eventually the water will get into the wall cavities causing us no end of problems. The garage roof is also goosed, evidence of wet rot And the chimney stacks need rebuilding. Gutted! As it's a repo (yes we were hoping to profit from someone elses misery ) the Estate Agents are saying that the bank who own it will not negotiate on price, it is sold as seen. This doesnt seem right to me, who in their right mind would buy a house that needs so much work doing to it at the price they originally offered?? Anyway, we have got our solicitor on the case (he is great) providing written quotes to see if teh bank will knock some money off. If they won't, there is no way we can afford the house. Keep your fingers crossed for us! In my mind I have already moved in, my flapper dresses are in the wardrobe and Noel Coward is coming round for tea!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Drive em down kirstickle! Write letters! Make phone calls! You obviously love this house, now you have to fight!

I know they're your friends and you won't want to believe that their opinion is less than perfect - but make sure you get a range of opinions and quotations on major work. Jon Maine is a really expert roofer on here with extraordinary amounts of experience in period properties.

You wouldn't believe the hogwash handy friends and so called expert tradesmen have said and quoted about this place. You have to educate yourself as much as possible on how old houses work and what needs to be done, and get tradesmen who understand older buildings. Having said all that I'm not saying your friends are wrong about the roof, I really don't know but I wouldn't go on just one opinion.

 

[Nigel Watts]

whoever did it just put the roof tiles back on without any felt underneath (why would anyone do that???). The builders ... say that all the tiles need to come off, felt put on, and tiles put back on at a cost of around £10k. They said eventually the water will get into the wall cavities causing us no end of problems.

How did houses survive in the days before roofing felt was invented then?

Surveyors' reports are always deeply depressing, but if you want to live in a period property (or probably any property) you are always going to be fighting a battle against the elements and constant maintenance will be required. Don't lose heart!

 

[christianb]

I agree with Nigel on that one. My cottage had its roof raised in the 1930's and there's no felt up there - and no problems (touch wood!).

But if you do want to go down the re-roofing route, then (assuming the property is "average size" and the roof uncomplicated) £10k sounds like quite a lot. I mean, you'd have plenty of change out of £500 for top of the range breather felt alone. In fact, you'd do it for a couple of hundred for standard stuff.

Maybe your friends are dotting the i's and crossing the t's and giving you the worse case scenario figure - which is no bad thing.

Good luck.

C.

 

[Penners]

Our first period property had a peg-tiled roof, with the tiles bedded in lime mortar. No felt, of course. If you went into the attic in daylight, you could see thousands of spots of light between the tiles - but neither rain nor snow ever entered the building.

Yours may be different, of course. But I would try to ascertain with absolute certainty that rain is getting in. The absence of felt in itself is not a guarantee of this.

 

[Schoolmarm]

That doesn't sound like much work to me. Cheer up.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Agree with the others about the roof, it may not be so bad-- have you looked at it yourselves? Perhaps get a second opinion.

With regard to the asking price, definitely fight hard to get your offer accepted; but ,if a Bank is selling it, they may have to achieve a certain figure.
However, depending on the circumstances, they may just take what they can get for it if time is running out on calling in a 'debt' . Either way they are bound to try to get every last penny out of the sale, mainly for themselves if you get my drift.

If all else fails and you are not successful, hang in there, keep in touch with the Vendor/Agents or whoever, it may well stick on the market, and they will come crawling back to you-- that happened to us twice last year.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

oooh yes, I forgot to add that neither of our houses in Norfolk were felted, no problems at all.

 

[MattW]

The builders are friends of ours so we know they are not bullsh***ng us when they say that all the tiles need to come off, felt put on, and tiles put back on at a cost of around £10k.

How big is the roof? I have just had the slate roof removed off a terraced house in London that 8m x 5m in footprint with a 90m2 of roof (roof is bigger than a normal single pitch as it is M shaped with a central gully). breathable membrane was put down, the roof reslated in reclaimed slate (replacing c.30% of the slates), lead flashing & gully all replaced and the flaunching redone. It took 3-4 guys about 1 week to do once the scaffolding was up. I'm not sure of the cost as it is part of a much larger project, but I would guess roofer day rates are c.£175 per day and materials were c.£600 for the slate that was repalced (£23 per m2, 27m2 replaced) and c. £150 for the lead, so including ancilliaries, say £800 of materials. So cost to my main contractor can't have exceeded £4.3K + scaffolding cost. Add on his profit margin, of say 20%, gives £5.2K + scaffolding - so perhaps £6.5K might be a ball park figure for a terraced house?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Yes, I was paying my builders £175 per day-- got a good job done too.

 

[Lime]

kirstickle, the builders don't sound like friends to me.

 

[Jill]

All i'll say is if you have been quoted £10k for the roof then we have got a bargain with our renovations. Get more quotes, if they are going to reuse the tiles then it should be alot less than that. Get a good team of scaffolders and roofers and the job will be done in no time. Can't give a breakdown of jobs as our work is a set price.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

From the photos Kistickle posted before, it is a rather large roof, and a moderately complicated one because of the T-shape plus projecting porch plan.

 

[JoceAndChris]

My roof quotes ranged between 10-15 k, it's not a huge house (14 metres by 6 approx) and labour is cheap here, so it must very much depend on the roof.

 

[Gervase]

Move your house to West Wales! I've just had some roofers tender for a job I'm running to do up a vast chapel that seats 1,000. Best price was a shade over £12,000, and these chaps are good.
Seriously, there should be wriggle room with your roofers. They should be able to salvage at least 70 per cent of the existing slates; if the roof is tiled rather than slated, then more like 95 per cent.

 

[Feltwell]

Move your house to West Wales! I've just had some roofers tender for a job I'm running to do up a vast chapel that seats 1,000. Best price was a shade over £12,000, and these chaps are good.
Seriously, there should be wriggle room with your roofers. They should be able to salvage at least 70 per cent of the existing slates; if the roof is tiled rather than slated, then more like 95 per cent.

Not sure on that one Gervase. We had plain clay tiles, similar to Kirstickle's, on our house - only 20-30 years older. About 40% were goosed when we finally had the roof re-done. One elevation was much worse than the rest. Once they start to shale, then they just crumble when disturbed.

They do seem to vary - on the house next to ours, similar age (late Victorian) but different brand of tiles, the roof is completely shot, at least 50% have clearly gone and the roof badly needs work. Other houses further down the street of a similar age are still OK.

In our case, as the scaffolding costs were so high (very tall & awkward shaped house) and it was clear that a high proportion of tiles had had their day, we took the difficult decision to replace all the tiles with new. To keep what was there that appeared to be good would inevitably have meant going up there again within 5 years to replace more tiles, with more scaffolding costs.

£10k sounds pricey if the existing tiles are OK though and can go back on. We spent £16k in total, but ours is a very large and complicated roof, with lots of hips and valleys and different roof pitches on different elevations - and we had all new tiles. That also included replacing a rotten dormer, insulating throughout (quite a big job), new fascia boards which had to be specially made, replacing 2 original rooflights and adding another new one. I probably could have got it done cheaper but the roofers did a 1st class job. Plenty of practice I guess - the main roofer was 64, and his mate was 72 !

 

[Gervase]

Fair comment - I'm afraid I jumped to an assumption; based on the premise that the roof had only recently been done without felt, then a strip wouldn;t cause too many problems.
Although, as has been suggested, felt isn't essential. My own place has no felt at all - just rafters, battens and slates, with lime torching on the battens - and manages to keep the weather out admirably. The secret lies in your insulation. If you don't need the attic space, insulate to a good eight inches over your top-floor ceilings and let the wind whistle round your roof space. If you decide you do need the attic space, then Gawd bless yer, guv'nor. because you'll have a lot more work on your hands.

 

[robgil]

this might be of help.

http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=200991&sid=3b7eed35aa8cfb627659f6b6f03c3961