Roof Repair Query

[tumbledown]

I have a single story extension to my house, which is about 200 years old. The roof is a bit of a mixture of quite old looking hand made plain tiles and some much newer looking machine made tiles. The roof is leaking quite badly, and on closer examination from the inside, the felt has rotted and fallen away in a lot of places. I'm not sure how old the felt is - it doesn't look like one of the more modern black kind. From the outside, the tiles are covered in moss and vegitation and look quite damaged and some are flaking quite badly.

Anyway, I've had a few opinions of the best way to repair it. Most say that the tiles need to come off, a breathable membrane installed, and tiles replaced. Of course, concidering the condition of the tiles, at least 50-60% of the tiles will be lost.

However, another person (admittedly a timber-framer not a roofer) feels it would be a shame to remove all the tiles as so many will be lost. He feels it would be better to remove as much of the rotted felt as possible from the inside, and try and repair the gaps in the roof from inside, using lime filler. He says there is no real requirement to have a membrane or felt, and this method would save the roof.

Has anyone else had experience of this type of roof repair, and would they have any recommendations?

 

[Penners]

There's one other factor that could influence your decision on whether a full re-roofing is needed, and that's the state of the battens. If they're in good condition, you might get away with working on the inside of the roof, but if they're rotten then I don't think you'll have much choice but to strip, felt, batten and tile.

Felt sarking is certainly not essential. Our first period property - a C15 peg-tiled cottage in East Anglia - had no felt at all. Just lime-bedded peg tiles. In the dark attic you could see thousands of points of light between the tiles, but the roof never let in a drop of rain.

 

[middi]

Penners is quite right, if the battens are in poor condition you might as well tighten your belt and go the whole hog in order to sort the roof out for the rest of your lifetime and somebody else's.

The fact that you loose a high percentage of the tiles it goes with the territory where old roofs are concerned, nothing lasts for ever.

As long as you are sympathetic to complement the remaining tiles with suitable hand made ones ( if applicable ) there should be no need for concern, apart from the expense of course.

Also as mentioned by Penners there is no absolute need for a membrane especially if you approach the restoration from a purist point of view and bed the tiles on lime mortar.( quite laborious !! )

There is no harm done , and quite helpfull, if you decide to use a modern type breather felt ,

THe decision is yours based on your view towards restoration, eco system appreciation and bank balance.

You can always use the really laid back attitude and get youself a couple of old buckets, just wash or shave when they are full up fromthe drips.
Now, that is eco friendly.

 

[tumbledown]

Thanks for the comments and advice. I guess I liked the idea of fixing it from the inside because it sounded cheaper mainly (much as I'd like to claim it was for eco+friendly reasons!). Where the felt has fallen away, the battons look pretty good, but I guess I will nedd to pull away as much as I can (shouldn't be too difficult - it just crumbles in your hands) and have a really good look. The tiles do look as if they are bedded in lime, but this seems a little strange as I'm not sure how they could have got the felt under the tiles (I assume tiles bedded in lime would have pre-dated the felt used). My biggest fear is that if the roof is patched up from within and restoration completed, the roof will start leaking again in a very short time, thus just putting off for a short while. Well, you pay your money and take your choice, I suppose .......