Roof advice please

ModernSlave

Please could any roofing experts let me know what they thing about this situation?

We've discovered that the house we're buying had a felt roof laid by previous owners. The strange thing is that it's on a a sloping south-facing roof and we've only ever seen felt roofs on flat structures.

All the other houses on the street are tiled (and built at the same time).

The survey didn't flag it as a problem but it was only a mortgage survey as the house is under 50 years old.

The 10 year guarantee runs out in 4 years and from what we've read felt roofs have a tenth of the lifespan of a tiled roof.

We're paying top dollar for the place and can't afford any dodgy roof issues.

Before this issue we were almost at exchange stage so we've invested money into solicitors, fees etc.

Any useful advice most welcome please and thank you.

Jowo_2

Are you saying that you only had a basic valuation as a survey (no inspection of the condition of it)?!

Send a couple of different roofing companies to the property that belong to a professional body, such as the National Federation of Roofing Contractors, to inspect the roof and produce a report and quote for any remedial work. Use this to negotiate a revised offer or pull out of the purchase if the findings are averse or the vendors won't cooperate. A cost of a new roof could be much higher than the fees paid out to date.

ModernSlave

Yes it was a basic mortgage valuation report.

Should we get quotes for a felt roof or a tiled roof?

sonastin

You should probably get advice from the roofing contractor - I've only ever seen felt on a flat roof but if it is suitable for this type of roof, it might be there for good reason.

Also consider getting a homebuyers survey done. If the vendors are the type of people who (maybe) put the wrong type of roofiing material up, who knows what other mess they might have made of the house. A basic mortgage valuation is only going to say that the bank has a pretty good chance of getting its money back if you default. It won't tell you anything meaningful about the condition of the house unless the fault will stop the bank getting their money back.

PasturesNew

Also, was it done to building regs? Apparently, if done since about 2006, re-doing a roof requires Building Regs. One way to open up more info on the matter.

Jowo_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

Also, was it done to building regs? Apparently, if done since about 2006, re-doing a roof requires Building Regs. One way to open up more info on the matter.

Good point. I don't know when this kicked in but when I recently had my house re-roofed (tiles), I was issued with a building compliance certificate by the local council who inspected it, plus the roofing company provided extra insulation for the loft to meet new requirements on that, too.

ModernSlave

I don't have the date of the original felt roof but the reason we found out about it was seeing the quote letter and guarantee certificate in the contract pack our solicitor sent us. The quote letter is from 2004 stating that the roof was done poorly with only 1 layer of felt and they recommended 3 layers. The certificate guarantees the new 3 layer roof for 10 years, so it will run out in 2014. I guess as it's before 2006 the building regs don't apply.

From what I can tell it's really uncommon to use felt on a pitched roof but I can't find out why that is. Is it because it deteriorates faster on a pitch?

ModernSlave

We've had a report from a roofer stating that it's in a bad way with the felt holding several pockets of water.

G_M

Did they comment on the suitablility of felt in this location? Give you any quotes?

lincroft1710

ModernSlave wrote: »

We've had a report from a roofer stating that it's in a bad way with the felt holding several pockets of water.

See if the owners are willing to claim under the guarantee.

lincroft1710

ModernSlave wrote: »

We've discovered that the house we're buying had a felt roof laid by previous owners. The strange thing is that it's on a a sloping south-facing roof All the other houses on the street are tiled (and built at the same time).

We're paying top dollar for the place and can't afford any dodgy roof issues.

If you're paying "top dollar" I would suggest you rethink, clearly not a "top dollar" property. I'd also be interested in why it has a felt roof not tile.