Replace roof coping stones - £700?

pelethecat

I'm having my roof overhauled and the roofers are now saying we need to replace the coping stones - which wasn't in their original quote - and are quoting £700, for materials plus a day's labour for three/four guys.

It's a Victorian mid-terrace house, the coping stones are flat square stones on both parapet party walls. Apparently they are Bath stone at the moment and he's saying we can replace them with concrete stones at £7.50 plus VAT each - I estimate about 30/35 stones are needed.

The quote seems steep to me - especially that much labour.

I'm panicking a bit as we budgeted for the original quote and my current employment contract runs out at the end of the month so not sure where I'm going to find another £700 from. But the scaffolding's already up, and if water's seeping through them then leaving it's only going to make it worse.

Thanks for your comments.

docmatt

It's hard to gauge without looking at it. Coping stones are a ball ache to remove and refit, not the esiest of jobs. You got a pic?

SailorSam

Sounds like they've seen the Bath stone ones which are probably worth a couple of bob and trying to get you to swop to modern ones, they'll sell the others on. The chances are the original stones only need pointing.
While the scaffold is there wouldn't you have a go yourself ?

keystone

The water will be getting through the pointing - no doubt about that. Why replace the stones themselves? Granted Bath stone is sandstone and its permeable but if they've survived 100 years its unlikely to be that. Almost certainly the pointing but don't take my word for it you need to get another opinion before you commit.

BTW - if you are in a conservation area and the planning people spot the nice shiny new concrete ones (or someone dobs you in) they'll make you put the originals back again. That'll cost a damned sight more that 700 notes if the contractor has had the original stone away.

Cheers

pelethecat

Thanks for all your comments. They dropped the price to £600 in the end, and *fingers crossed* our neighbours will chip in a bit, as they're protecting the party walls. I hadn't considered they might be able to sell on the Bath stone, though I saw a few of them cracked as they took them away, and they did say they were finding that water was permeating through to the walls beneath. Whether that was through the stones themselves or just the pointing I'll never know.

For info for anyone else looking at similar, the new stones themselves (32 of them) were £280 and the rest was labour.

@Sailorsam - not a chance you'd catch me up a ladder, let alone a scaffold!
@Keystone - just a bog standard Victorian terrace, not a conservation area. Most other folk in our road have new concrete tiles.