Tiles and Leak on Low Pitched Roof

north south east west

I bought a house a couple of weeks ago which has an extension that is around 15 years old. There are a number of leaks that are coming in on the top of the windows facing out onto the back garden. From previous remedial work it looks like these may be originating around the flashing of the velux windows on the extension.

The pitched roof of the extension is 5 degrees at the lowest point and 7 degrees at the top. I have had three roofers out to quote for work, two say that the felt on the lower half of the roof needs to be replaced at a cost between 600 euro to 1000. The third roofer recommends that the pitch of the roof is too low for tiles and that the tiles need to be removed and replaced with Alcorplan and the two Velux windows raised up to a 15 degree angle. Now the cost of the roof replacement is 3,800 euro, significantly more then the other two quotes.

Being a complete novice in this area and short of spare cash its hard to pick which option is better. Just to add the leaks are fairly bad and have already damaged the wooden floor of the extension.

Anyone have any advice about what would be the better option to go with?

Lumen

Less than 10 degrees is a flat roof.

The third little pig is right. Build it properly.

north south east west

Lumen wrote: »

Less than 10 degrees is a flat roof.

The third little pig is right. Build it properly.

Thanks, the online reading that I have done seems to say that tiles shouldnt be used on a pitch that low. What made me question it was that the two other roofers said to just replace the felt and didnt mention anything about tiles being used on a roof of that pitch.

Have you ever heard of alkorplan? Is it a good material to use in this situation, it seems that zinc could be an option but would be far more expensive and well outside our budget.

Alkers

Will either of the first two quotes give a guarantee or are they cash in hand type jobs? €3,800 doesn't seem a bad quote either for the work involved if you can get a gaurantee with that too.

north south east west

Alkers wrote: »

Will either of the first two quotes give a guarantee or are they cash in hand type jobs? €3,800 doesn't seem a bad quote either for the work involved if you can get a gaurantee with that too.

Yeah both of them would give guarantees, 15 years and 7 from memory. Don't know how much water the guarantees hold though if you pardon the pun.

sydthebeat

3800 is actually a low quote for this work

WildCardDoW

Yeah I think the lowest pitch roof tiles I've seen are the Roadstone Centurion and the lowest pitch they work with is 12.5deg.

Theyre also 2-3 times more expensive than normal roof tiles!

If the leak is so bad it's impacted the floor then it might have also had a bad impact on the joists etc. supporting the roof. The last option seems most realistic.

Don't know how it ever got built that way at all...

north south east west

WildCardDoW wrote: »

Yeah I think the lowest pitch roof tiles I've seen are the Roadstone Centurion and the lowest pitch they work with is 12.5deg.

Theyre also 2-3 times more expensive than normal roof tiles!

If the leak is so bad it's impacted the floor then it might have also had a bad impact on the joists etc. supporting the roof. The last option seems most realistic.

Don't know how it ever got built that way at all...

That's my thinking too. I began to question it though when two separate roofers recommended just replacing the felt.