New utility room disaster! Low pitched slate roof leaking.

the_tired_one

Basically, the builders from hell built a small utility room for us. I know nothing about builders or roof building protocol & just expected them to do an honest job.

The reality is that they took the money & left me with a monstrosity that needs to be hacked to the ground.

But I cant do that so need solutions.

I have been told the reason why I have a 2-3 seperate leaks in the utility room is because I have a very very low pitch roof (its virtually flat) & the &*^&%*$^ put slate tiles on it, which is not the acceptable thing to do - I am told even concrete Tiles are not acceptable on this roof - and the rain that we are having is just sitting there & not observing the laws of gravity - because there is no slope for the water to go down - and with the wind, its being forced in.

I cant (and wont call those builders back because (a) their incompetence & inability to listen to my requests even though I was paying them, (b) no way could me or family bear to have such ghastly, horrible, abusive, threatning people in the house ever again.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to possible solutions for rectifying this horrendous problem? Eg Different roof types that would be suited for this utility room roof (approx 11ft x 3ft)

I know they will they have to completely remove all the slate tiles, but will they have to remove the frames etc?

NB: They cant increase the pitch of the roof as the toilet waste pipes etc are there & you cant shift those!

I cant afford to be ripped off again. I am still paying off the bank loans for the 1st disaster they caused (yes there were more) and have lost all trust & faith in the building industry after this latest cowboy disaster which has left me on medication from the doctor.

dander

I guess you must have had this built without building regs?
Different types of tile are suited to different roof pitches - you need to check the technical info on whatever you're using to find out what the minimum pitch should be.

Really you need to talk to a builder about bringing the work up to a standard to meet building regs, but the risk is that it won't just be the roof you need to get re-done and the inspectors will have to do a certain amount of destruction to be able to inspect the foundations etc.

the_tired_one

Thanks - in terms of options available to us, what are the potential solutions available to us?

Eg Different type of roof types for a virtually flat roof?

iamcornholio

Although it may be a low pitch, are you sure that this is the sole reason for the water penetration and not additional quality issues?

Low pitched roofs can experience water penetration by driven rain getting uner the tile overlaps, and again by getting under the sarking felt overlaps. Although tiles have a recommended minnimum pitch, it can be possible to increase the tile overlap and then seal the sarking felt overlaps to seal the roof.

An alternative tile is a Redland Regency concrete tile which will work down to 11 degree pitch.

Otherwise, the slates and laths need to come off, and you fit plywood across the rafters and then felt this with bitumen felt (like you get on a flat roof) with sealed joints and then you counter-batten and lath this before re-slating. The problem you may have with this is that it will increase the heigh of the finshed roof by about 60mm all around

Or take the tiles off and board it and fit a standard bitumen or EPDM roof covering