Roof problem

nagero

Hi

Looking at the attached pic you can see that the plaster (if you call it that) at the edge of my roof is starting to come away.

It looks like it wasn't very well done in the first place because none of the other houses in the estate have the same amount of moss growing out of it.

I want to get this repaired but wonder if any can help me out with some background info on:

- What this plaster is / What do you call it.
- How it is made up
- What is the 'best' way to get this repaired so it doesn't leak/grow moss again.

thanks

kevin

kadman

Judging by the pvc facia, I'd say its not an old house.

Definitely seems to be a poor job on the eaves.
How much is the overhang of the tiles , past the facia board, it looks very little.
I think you also need to inspect the condition of the facia, as it also looks poor, and prone to water ingress.

I cant understand why the cement fillet, is equal to the height of the visible facia. As its not possible to see further up the rafters, I suspect it may be due to a bellcast at the end of the rafters.

How old is the house, and are the eaves all around the house in similar condition.

kadman

nagero

kadman wrote:

Judging by the pvc facia, I'd say its not an old house.

It is 3 years old

kadman wrote:

Definitely seems to be a poor job on the eaves.
How much is the overhang of the tiles , past the facia board, it looks very little.

less that 10mm (if that)

kadman wrote:

I think you also need to inspect the condition of the facia, as it also looks poor, and prone to water ingress.

I think the phrase you're looking for is cr*p.

kadman wrote:

I cant understand why the cement fillet, is equal to the height of the visible facia. As its not possible to see further up the rafters, I suspect it may be due to a bellcast at the end of the rafters

See lowres2 for a better shot and lowres3 for the state of the gutter between the roofs.

kadman wrote:

How old is the house, and are the eaves all around the house in similar condition.

all eaves either look like this or are getting there...

thanks

kevin

kadman

Hi Nagero,

How long have you lived in this house. Did you buy it from new.

I have to say, I have never seen eaves deteriorate to such a degree , in such a short space of time , as on these pics.

You have a couple of issues to address here, apart from the materials description you asked for.

Your hip tiles appear to rise above the upper section of the upper roof, and as such may be prone to water ingress from the upper sections. As I see no protective flashing there.

Your valley is in an extremely poor state, and needs to be examined, to ensure that the cement fillet is in good order, and judging from the eaves quality, I doubt it.

From the front of the house, standing in the same place you took the picture, the short gutter running from the valley towards you , appears to have no outlet. I assume this water flows back towards the valley, and down into th lower gutter overhead the door. An extremely poor arrangement.

The facia is in bad condition, and no doubt has allowed water to enter behind it. Pvc facia has a tendency to hide all manner of water damage taking place behind it.

The short overhang , is a sign of poor setting out in construction of the roof, and the facia line , viewed from the camera direction, is anything but straight.

In short, there is more to deal with, than just cement patching. Definitely requires on site assessment by a pro.

Have you any recourse back to the builder. Was it covered by homebond.

They say a pic is worth a thousand words, unfortunately this pic tells a bad story about poor building techniques.

kadman

Hal1

hi, looks like the lead flashing is in bad shape and will need replacing it shouldn't be a too costly job if you fix it early on. It means removing the roof tiles to access the flashing under neath and removing the old stuff and replacing, simple as that.

nagero

kadman wrote:

How long have you lived in this house. Did you buy it from new.

When we bought it it was roofed but with no internal work done.

kadman wrote:

I have to say, I have never seen eaves deteriorate to such a degree , in such a short space of time , as on these pics.

You have a couple of issues to address here, apart from the materials description you asked for.

Your hip tiles appear to rise above the upper section of the upper roof, and as such may be prone to water ingress from the upper sections. As I see no protective flashing there.

Funny you should say that, we had a 6 month to-ing and fro-ing with the builder to get a leak at the left hand hip fixed.

kadman wrote:

Your valley is in an extremely poor state, and needs to be examined, to ensure that the cement fillet is in good order, and judging from the eaves quality, I doubt it.

The debris you see there is concrete broken away.

kadman wrote:

From the front of the house, standing in the same place you took the picture, the short gutter running from the valley towards you , appears to have no outlet. I assume this water flows back towards the valley, and down into th lower gutter overhead the door. An extremely poor arrangement.

Correct.

kadman wrote:

Have you any recourse back to the builder. Was it covered by homebond.

They are still onsite. I feel another war of words approaching.

It is covered by homebond, would they take an interest in this?

An architect did our snag list and got himself fired on the spot for being useless :rolleyes:

kadman wrote:

They say a pic is worth a thousand words, unfortunately this pic tells a bad story about poor building techniques.

Thanks for the feedback.

kevin :mad:

Carpenter

nagero wrote:

Hi

Looking at the attached pic you can see that the plaster (if you call it that) at the edge of my roof is starting to come away.

It looks like it wasn't very well done in the first place because none of the other houses in the estate have the same amount of moss growing out of it.

I want to get this repaired but wonder if any can help me out with some background info on:

- What this plaster is / What do you call it.
- How it is made up
- What is the 'best' way to get this repaired so it doesn't leak/grow moss again.

thanks

kevin

Hi
Just a thought but are u beside the sea

nagero

Carpenter wrote:

Hi
Just a thought but are u beside the sea

Just outside Carlow town.

kevin

kadman

Did the builder show any interest in your concerns, or is that a stupid question.

kadman

nagero

kadman wrote:

Did the builder show any interest in your concerns, or is that a stupid question.

He said he'd patch up that bit in the first pic and re-cement the valley. It took the offer of money to get any intrest in replacing all the cement.

kevin

kadman

nagero wrote:

He said he'd patch up that bit in the first pic and re-cement the valley. It took the offer of money to get any intrest in replacing all the cement.

kevin

I would not be giving my hard earned dosh to a contractor, that allowed that quality of work to take place in the first instance.

It looks like he's offering a quick lick and a polish, and for money, no way.

Your roof is the one part of your structure that gives a protective envelope to the rest of your building. In your case it is showing early stages of degredation, in the most vulnerable areas, the valley, and the hips, apart from other areas of your roof, that you probably have not inspected yet.

A quick patch up, is not going to give the results you need.

You have , from the pics alone,

Incorrectly fitted gutters,
Incorectly fitting facia.
Degraded eaves.
Degraded valleys.
Unflashed hip tiles.

Patching would not correct these elements, you would only be putting of the inevitable.

kadman

gregos

There's a section of the building regulations that relates directly to materials and workmanship. You should WRITE to the building control department of the County Council.

rooferPete

Hi nagero,

I think Kadman has covered most of the problems or questions your photos show, there are a few that I have but I think you already have enough bad news.

Gregos,

There are rules and guidelines that should be followed, there are also suppliers product specifications etc etc

What I have been looking at doesn't really need rules or specifications, I think common sense would have prevented most if not all the problems.

In photo 1, I thought the problem might have been from poor setting out, but it's the front and the point where the tiling would start from, so why no verge ?

My advice for what it's worth is don't allow that cowboy back near your roof unsupervised, and definitely do not pay him anything.

I have stated before that I have a self imposed rule about commenting on roof prices etc on the forum as there can be a perceived conflict of interest.

The three photos of this roof speak volumes in themselves, the truly sad part is there are thousands of similar roofs around the country at second level where the home owner doesn't get to see the problems as fast.

I would like someone to post a roof photo where I can give a positive answer in one or even a couple of sentences.

.

gregos

Pete

What I'm trying to say is this: if the workmanship is as bad as it seems to be, Nagero might easily be able to enlist the support of the local authority, who carry a lot more clout than he does. That would enable him to avoid the civil litigation route with all its attendant costs and uncertainties.

nagero

Thanks for the replies.

For comparison here are the same spots on my house and my nextdoor neighbours.

The facia is obviously more than 10mm in from the tile edge on theirs and it looks like there is leading involved there too.

edit -> Does anyone have a pic/drawing of the "right" way to do this?


kevin

nagero

gregos wrote:

What I'm trying to say is this: if the workmanship is as bad as it seems to be, Nagero might easily be able to enlist the support of the local authority, who carry a lot more clout than he does. That would enable him to avoid the civil litigation route with all its attendant costs and uncertainties.

Council say we agreed that all is ok by buying the house. Possibly have some leverage with homebond as it is less than 2 years since they fixed the leaky roof.

kevin

gregos

nagero wrote:

Council say we agreed that all is ok by buying the house.

What level was the council official who told you this?

nagero

gregos wrote:

What level was the council official who told you this?

Not 100% sure, he effectively said that building regs are not specific enough to be enforcable.
kevin

rooferPete

Hi gregos,

One of my pet peeves with the building regs is the building bye laws were done away within any local authority area where they applied, for example Dublin had Bye Laws but Meath didn't.

I think it is one of the major disadvantages of the self policing system we have at the moment, even with the bye laws in place details slipped through, the big difference was the local authority could make life very difficult for the builder who caused them grief.

FWIW I always advise customers who have legitimate complaints to avoid the courts where possible, once the clock starts ticking the legal costs can escalate for the homeowner, while the developer can sit back and absorb those costs as a tax write off some wouldn't be charged the legal fees because they send so much lucrative business through the solicitors office.

The person in the local authority may be right about the regs not being specific enough to enforce, they expect the Architect and surveyor to ensure the property is in compliance with both the planning permission and the building regs.

The words "In My Opinion The Property Is In Substantial Compliance" are open to interpretation, they are the words on the majority "Certificates" of compliance.

They are not really "Certificates" they are "Opinions on Compliance", part of the reason the regs are "loose" is because they would have difficulty in covering every different system in the market place.

I will take a look and see what photos I have of the detail done properly.

.

rooferPete

Hi,

I hope these pics give you an idea of a wet verge detail, the recommended is 40 > 50 mm over hang passed the facia.

The rule of thumb used to be 2" or 50 mm, I think the nominal 10 mm difference became the accepted detail since the fitting of PVC over existing facia.

The manufacturers are pushing their dry ridge and verge systems that does not mean the old sytems are all that wrong, the idea is to avoid the detail being abused as on your house.

gregos

rooferPete wrote:

I think it is one of the major disadvantages of the self policing system we have at the moment, even with the bye laws in place details slipped through, the big difference was the local authority could make life very difficult for the builder who caused them grief.

Most local authorities have building control departments and have the power to make life very tough for a dodgy developer. What the person in the council told Nagero is a bit of a cop-out: what he really meant was he couldn't be arsed. That's why I advised Nagero to put his complaint in writing. They actually have the power to do something about this.

kadman

If the builder is still onsite, and still building additional houses there. I would be tempted to let the builder know that I intend to give the poor build defects on my house wider exposure.

The last thing a builder who has additional units to sell wants is negative advertising about his poor quality products. As said earlier, litigation is along hard road, as well as expensive.

I'm not too sure that local authorities have either the inclination, manpower , or will , to make any sort of major impact into these types of complaints.

I find it hard to understand that your architect or surveyor, could not see the writing on the wall with the poor quality of your house, even if the eaves were perfect at the time. The tell tale signs were there.

Did you get a surveyors report before you purchased it,

kadman

nagero

kadman wrote:

I find it hard to understand that your architect or surveyor, could not see the writing on the wall with the poor quality of your house, even if the eaves were perfect at the time. The tell tale signs were there.

Did you get a surveyors report before you purchased it?

It is really hard to find a competent one, like I said earlier we fired one architect on the spot for being useless.
There are many things we'd do differently if we ever purchase another house.

nagero

rooferPete

Hi nagero,

I understand where you are coming from, you find the house you can afford then it's almost as if they are doing you a favour allowing you to buy it.

As gregos stated most of the local authorities have a building control officer but it's really a combination of the the job of Planning control, they are so busy they don't want to know.

That is why they rely on the opinion 's of compliance, basically if you kick up a fuss they try to blame the Architect who issued the cert of compliance, the warning flag is raised and the builder,architect and everyone responsible runs for cover.

Tactful negotiation would be the first option, if you are not being listened to then you resort to your other options.

The stress involved can be very hard to take, almost worse than moving house, the fact that there are still houses for sale may be a big plus in transferring that stress over to the builder and the architect.

.