Slate roofing question

[Nedski]

Hi
I have just had a re-roof done on my terraced Victorian property. The abutment or join to the neighbour's property at the apex of the roof has been done in mortar. From what I can tell, my neighbours seem to have lead. Is it necessary to have lead or will mortar suffice. A second roofing company has come to look and were highly critical. They want more than £2000 to rectify this. I am new to the area and have no trusted roofer to call on. I would be grateful for any and all advice please.

 

[MikeG]

Welcome nedski.

Firstly, this is going to be impossible to comment on authoritatively without photos. Secondly, and really importantly, this sort of thing is entirely within the skill set of ordinary builders. You don't need a roofer.

Pop up some photos and we'll comment on what needs doing.

 

[MatthewC]

Hi Nedski

As a general thing, if you give us a clue as to your area in your profile, you might get some personal recommendations for any required trade.

this sort of thing is entirely within the skill set of ordinary builders. You don't need a roofer.

...although any ordinary builder might start damaging the slates through ignorance (my personal view of the average builder!!).

Matthew

 

[plasticpigeon]

Are you an architect MikeG? If so I imagine you have formed relationships with "ordinary builders" who are competent or perhaps even skillful, but in my experience, most builders are useless. You only need to drive around any big city (my home city of Birmingham is no doubt one of the worst) to see that almost every property, particularly older properties are the victims of botched and innappropriate works. I am certain that the generally appalling standard of building work, carried out with wrong techniques, wrong materials, awful craftsmanship and poor taste is not due to the requests of the homeowner, but due to the lack of knowledge and ability of most in the trade. I personally got so sick of bad builders that I do almost everything myself now, but a roof is rather too big a job. Mortar does sound wrong, but 2k to put it right sounds too much. The only way to get the job done properly is to find someone who has standards and knows what they are talking about to give you a recommendation, as taking a chance on someone never ever works out well. Hopefully someone on this forum can give some recommedations if you disclose which part of the country you are in. Good luck!

 

[Flyfisher]

£2k does sound a lot for the description of the work but without photos it's difficult to tell. Also, that price might include scaffolding, which could be extensive and easily account for half of the cost. From the brief description of the work it doesn't sound like more than a day's work, in which case the right person using a roof ladder could probably do the job for less than £500. As ever with period properties, the real trick is finding that right person.

 

[MikeG]

Are you an architect MikeG? If so I imagine you have formed relationships with "ordinary builders" who are competent or perhaps even skillful, but in my experience, most builders are useless..........

Yes, I am..........and yes, I know lots of really good builders. Thing is, even ordinary builders are pretty good when handed a tightly drawn set of drawings with no ambiguities, and are bound by a contract, a contract which includes regular visits from the architect. It isn't the builder's skill which is usually the problem, in my experience, it is the fact that they aren't given clear guidance as to what to do (I'll be the first to admit that many of them are dangerous when they start thinking), and clients who have unrealistic expectations of how cheap something should be.

As you may know, I am also a decent builder, and am two years into a full time rebuild of my own cottage, with lots of green oak work, and plenty of other skilled stuff too. No trades other than electrician, plumber and plasterer ever set foot on my site. I'm from the more practical end of the spectrum of architects......

Joking aside, even little jobs can benefit from oversight by an architect, and I would urge people without the confidence to know exactly how the job should be done to speak with a local conservation architect before they get involved with any builders.

 

[plasticpigeon]

You must be living on a different planet to me as your experience that it is not usually the builders skill that is lacking is toally alien to me. I have made drawings, patterns for brick bonds, examples of pointing done by myself, I even made a wooden former for a brick arch myself as I know that is too much for a builder to do, as they don't do wood do they. Nothing went right. Unfortunately all of the building work around me is worse than that done on my house, and the work done on mine was unforgivable. I admit, Birmingham is not known for it's appreciation of quality or beauty.

 

[MikeG]

Builders in Suffolk who can't deal with historic buildings are unlikely to be builders for long...........so yes, I guess our different world is just that. The area self-selects reasonable builders, and they learn what they need to know to make a living. Bear in mind that we don't really do stone down this way (flint excepted*), and we have only been into bricks for a while (oak framed buildings were the standard for centuries).

* And clunch. Mustn't forget clunch.

I think we might be having a town-versus-countryside conversation, though, without realising it.

 

[stuart45]

There are plenty of skilled tradesmen around and there are plenty of chancers as well in the trade. When you work in the trade you soon get to know who the decent ones are, but for people not in it, finding the right tradesmen can be a real problem.
More rural areas tend to have less cowboys as the word seems to get round much quicker than in the city where there is more scope to move about.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Maybe we could make a list of tradespeople on this forum that we have used and would recommend, that would be a big help to lots of people!

 

[MikeG]

There are a number of very good reasons why I couldn't get involved with that suggestion.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I give up!

 

[MatthewC]

I admit, Birmingham is not known for its appreciation of quality or beauty.

Understatement of the year! But sadly there are many competitors.

I agree with you PP about the quality of local builders - for every gem there are at least ten cowboys (and about 50 average in between). It does depend where you are; in London I found that all building trades found work easily so they had nothing to lose by doing jobs shoddily, too fast. Here in this small town, a bad reputation would get around very quickly - hence the job is done better and any post payment rectification is more likely to be done.