Flat roof

CharlieBubble

propertyman wrote: »

I would suggest in honestly not for the purposes of being dramatic that you are treating this with all the seriousness of window shopping.

The person is trying to move home and doesn't need an"initial" offer that you feel you can just walk away from. This is someone's life and plans you are twiddling with!

Get serious and quickly and learn something for your sake and everyone else's.

New build houses are sold on plan with stage payments and staged inspections on the basis it is built as promised.

If you have seen it several times you needed to focus on seeing the pointy bit where the roof meets. Basic school geometry teaches you that the angle of the roof, which you can see, means the roof bit needs to go further to meet the other bits.

I am not trying to "beat up" on you but your posts bely a staggering confidence with enormous naivety.

You must seriously focus or next time you wont see the "flat roof" and it will cost you money and heartache.

I am not playing with anyone's life. It is new build house, being sold by an EA on behalf of a property development company. It's empty, as are the two houses either side. There is nobody living there to hurt or destroy their hopes and dreams. The fact i have said it's a new house and is being sold by a building company makes me think you scan posts without actually reading them fully.

Yes I know about geometry, but you can't see any point from the ground, it is a semi-detatched and they are pitched on all 4 sides for the first few metres with various changes in angle and one roof slightly back and lower than the other to obviously add some character to them and due to the fact it has houses either side, is on a hill so the rear of the property is several metres below the house you can't see any point from the sides or back. Imagine a house with no chimney, pitched as far as you can see, but with the top metre or so flattened. The fact is that from the ground even with wembley floodlights on it, you can't tell it's flat.

CharlieBubble

Image of the detached house next door

The house we are interested in is on the left of this one and is a semi, but is exactly the same style. This is the only picture of the non-town houses that I could find on the net. Now, upon looking at this image, is the first thing that leaps into your head something along the lines of, "God, that flat roof is going to be a pain to insure and maintain!"? Probably not, because unless you're a builder/surveyor/roofer/architect or you actually know beforehand that the very centre of the roof is flat and start examining pitch angles etc. you'd probably be none the wiser. You can't even see the solar panels up there, but they're there.

CharlieBubble

propertyman wrote: »

Here are some guides to help you

http://www.roofconsult.co.uk/guide.htm HOuseholders guide to flat roofs

RICS guide on housebuying & Surveys http://www.rics.org/buyingahome/

NHBC Warranty http://www.nhbc.co.uk/Warrantiesandcover/Homeowners/

On a new build roof ideally you want

1: A warranty from the installer with an insurance backed guarentee

2: Same from the builder

If the builder is still in business your first stop is with them, the NHBC is really an insurer of the last resort, and with the excess on the warranty only extensive repairs are covered.

Have it fully inspected prior to purchase.

As it's a new build and is being sold by the builder, then I would expect that asking the EA to ask him about the roof and it's construction materials would possibly mean any extra roof guarantees/warranties would be highlighted to me. This was the initial purpose of the thread, to get questions to ask the vendor, but has since turned into, can CB spot a flat roof from a pointy one.

Householders guide to flat roofs looks helpful.

tyllwyd

I've never seen a roof like that one - I guess the ceiling height inside the upstairs rooms is higher than the bottom edge of the roof? Does the ceiling slope down at the edges of the rooms? It must have been more expensive to build it that way, so it makes me wonder why they bothered - I wonder if it was specifically done so that they could mount the solar panels on the roof, so that they could meet environmental conditions on the planning permission. Or maybe to keep the total height of the building under a certain height. Does it compromise the head room in the loft space - would it still be useable for storage? It would be interesting to ask the developer why it was built that way (or maybe see if you can ask someone at the council who might be able to give you some background).

propertyman

tyllwyd wrote: »

I've never seen a roof like that one - I guess the ceiling height inside the upstairs rooms is higher than the bottom edge of the roof?

From the limited description, it is not it seems a mansard but a normal roof with the top sliced off, to allow serving to the solar panels. These types of roofs were fashionable in the 1980's, as it can save a considerable amount in timber and roof tiles in favour of ply decking and a "felt" covering..

We are obsessed with tiles in the UK, houses in Canada are in fact flat roofs on a slope, the same ply decking ( plus an ice shield) and layers of "felt" and a final sheet manufactured to look like tiles or shingles.

And they get covered in feet of snow every year!

CharlieBubble

The rooms were as usual inside. The agent said the loft space had a lot of insulation in and there wasn't much space up there.

I can only think that there is a planning clause to keep the total roof height down. As the town houses behind are down a slope, so their 1st floor is level with the garden of the ones up the hill, they have normal pitched roofs. On google maps it appears that this development replaced 4 or 5 bungalows. Maybe there is a maximum height restriction.

mrschaucer

I can quite understand your reluctance re the flat roof. Have you tried to get a "theoretical" insurance quote on the house to see how much more they will charge you?