Roof issues, any advice?

coolisin

Looking for a little bit of advice on how to approach my situation.
Roof was retiled in July/Aug 2016 while doing a full refurb of our house.

Old tiles removed to match in with New extensions.
They didn't remove old felt for breathable felt, not ideal but we didn’t get any advice on the matter, obviously now we get a good bit of condensation in the attic. We originally assumed this was causing wetness in the attic, so installed a dehumidifier to assist in keeping attic dry.

After some investigations this year, while looking to increase attic ventilation. Remove extractor fan pipe going "nowhere" and put it to a roof vent & install roof vents we discovered the roof was leaking in places.
The guy we had in looking to the Roof vents pointed out that it appears the Ridge tiles are mortared poorly and so are leaking this is running down the felt and dripping down, a lot of the tiles are not seated correctly directly below the ridge tiles, so the water is running under them there is also leaking around the Roof windows which were also installed during the refurb of the house.

On top of this at the valley in the chimney the water is running down the roof and filing the drain and leaking into the roof, as there was not enough lead put against the chimney to prevent this one side of the chimney they installed plenty of lead.
Either way we have a few Brown spots on our ceiling in our hall and sitting room.

He also pointed out he’s worried about the roof over the new extension as it seems to be "dipping" where the old roof and new roof join.

Basically the guy said it’s approx. €3000 - €5000 to fix this!

Looking like it is remove all ridge tiles add extra tiles along ridge
Remove tiles around chimney to investigate, place extra lead in where required.
Repair leaks around roof windows, and seal windows better to prevent drafts.

See if they can install more support to the part of the roof he thinks is dipping

It wasn’t a small refurb there was a builder, architect and engineer involved.
Would there be any come back in getting the builder or structural engineer to rectify these issues or is it tough luck no guarantee.

BryanF

Ring arch & structural eng and ask for meeting on site. if slates were removed/replaced I can’t understand why the battens & felt wasn’t changed?

coolisin

BryanF wrote: »

Ring arch & structural eng and ask for meeting on site. if slates were removed/replaced I can’t understand why the battens & felt wasn’t changed?

Cheers thanks for that.

I’ve no idea, we thought we where paying people to do their job and advise us as to the best course of action.

Meningate

If your roof had no tiles on al all and no lead in the valleys, it should still be completely water tight. The whole idea of having felt on is so that if any water gets through the outer covering (tiles etc) perhaps when a tile breaks of some are blown off, any water getting in will run down the underfelt into the gutter. If you have felt on and still have leaks then the felt is damaged or incorrectly fitted and needs sorting first. As a roofer of 40 years, I once checked a fairly new roof for a leak and found they had overlapped the felt the wrong way ! Good luck.

tradesman

+1 for meningate answer. I had a so called roofer in to felt an extension as I was too busy with other works. I came home & was having a cup of tea & water came in through the felt.This so called "roofer" had laid the felt under lapped instead of overlapped. Tiles are really decoration & the 1st line of defence. If they get damaged the felt is supposed to stop the rain from getting into the house. My advice would be to strip tiles & felt & start again.

coolisin

Thanks Meningate and Tradesman.
Well there was two skylights installed and one of them is leaking around so its not just a felt issue.

Its more a question of would builders give a "warrenty" would it fall under the sale of goods act, basically i spent €150k plus on a house refurb feel like the roof should have lasted longer then one normal winter and one bad winter!

Is the only real "felt" repair as tradesman said remove tiles start again.

Metric Tensor

Start by giving the Architect and Engineer a buzz and ask them to come out and look at it.

Then depending on what they say either ask one of them to follow up with the builder or talk to him yourself.

You'll get all sorts of Billy Bigballs telling you to send solicitor's letters and sue everybody you can find - you'll get on much better for the time being by keeping it cordial and talking to everybody involved about how the issues will be solved.

Do keep a record of all meetings and phonecalls just in case but do your best to keep things friendly - more bees with honey than vinegar, etc., etc.