The survey recommended a fair bit of work on the roof & guttering, for both the main property and the detached garage.
- Rear Valleys defective
- Damaged/missing roof lining at eaves
- Moss
- Damaged verge pointing
- Ridge tile repairs
- High levels of moss growth
- Rainwater goods damaged and suspected to contain asbestos
- Chimney repairs.
We got a couple of quotes and picked what we thought was the best. The roofer had replaced a flat roof on our old property so we felt confident that they would manage the work on our bungalow. They quoted for roof & chimney repairs, rainwater system and an eaves protection system. They also recommended fitting an “dry verge system” in place of the verge pointing.
The survey also pointed out damage to the render on various walls of the bungalow as well as worn pointing and spalled bricks. The roofers quoted to do this work as well, so it seemed sensible to do as much as we could in one hit.
There was a ton of bird nesting material under the front eaves, so adding roof lining was a good idea to prevent birds from nesting there in the future. The red facias were all made of wood, so we decided to replace with UPVC.
The roofers were on site for 2 weeks in all, completing several tasks.
How did we feel after the work was done? If I’m honest we were not altogether satisfied. The ridge tiles were removed and rebed very well. Theafter, the job went downhill. Some examples are:
- The front and garage facias were as wonky as a set of skate park ramps. I had to ask for them to be removed and re-done.
- I caught them attaching the new PVC soffits directly onto the old wooden soffits rather than removing the old prior to adding the new. This corner cutting was really disappointing and in retrospect we should have fired them at this point, but after a lot of discussion I gave them a second chance.
- The render took forever to remove. The lad tasked with doing the job did a *lot* of huffing and puffing, stopping multiple times to check his phone. In the end I told them to leave it because I wanted them to be finished and off site as quickly as possible.
- Fortunately it rained mid-way through the job. This enabled me to video water pouring out of various junctions of the guttering rather than down the downpipe. It turned out that various rubber seals had been omitted by accident.
- The dry verges were wonky and in particular the “domed apex” cover (the one at the top) stuck up about 2 inches above the adjacent ridge tile. The apex was refitted at my request. I felt this particular task was serioiusly overpriced, considering the cost of materials and the time it took for fitment. Checking the price of materials I found that it came to less than 15% of the overall cost, which being very conservative would mean a labour cost of £280 a day for this bit alone. My neighbour had fitted his system himself, and having seen how it was done I would have to agree that it could have been DIY’d on a bungalow.
- The force with which the new eaves protection had been inserted caused the existing roof felt to become badly ripped in several places above the top edge of the plastic. This only became evident when I got a different (recommended) roofer to come and check the work at a later date.
- The replacement bricks (for those that had blown) were very different in colour to the existing bricks, although this wasn’t a major issue compared to the others listed above.
We both felt a little sick in the aftermath the job. If this was a sign of things to come we were not going to end up with a home we would love to spend our retirement in. I’m sure many peope have been in a similar situation after being on the receiving end of a sub-standard job. We could only hope that future trades would be more reliable.
The place looks a bit different with white facias and black guttering, compared with the red we had before. From a distance it all looks good – it’s when you start to inspect more closely that the problems emerge. We would need to revisit the roof at a later date.