replacing felt underneath concrete roof tiles

moneyistooshorttomention

In the course of the water leaking through my roof onto the ceiling of a room, I have been told that the roof felt underneath the concrete roof tiles is obviously the original felt (ie 1970s) and has gone brittle and awful with age and will need replacing entirely.

I have been told that the process of doing this involves taking all the roof tiles off my roof, then replacing this roof felt, then replacing those same roof tiles back onto my roof. Some mention was made about replacing battens as well.

Is this the case?

I would have thought it would be possible to get up into the loft and rip down all the old felt from there and then put up the new felt and Job Done.

That would make it a cheaper job/no risk to my roof tiles and keeping the roof tiles in place throughout the job.

Surely that would be the best way to do it wouldn't it?

Is there a viable reason why those tiles would have to come off and then go back on again and, if so, what is it?

Captain_Flack.

How do you plan to get it under the battens and over the end walls?

mwbrown

To replace the old felt, all the tiles would have to come off and all the battens would have to come of (if they are 1970s then would probably be better replacing them) for the old felt to be removed.

They would then replace with a modern breathable membrane and rebatten the roof and replace the tiles back on the roof (I would guess that they would have to replace some of the tiles, as some would no doubt break when removing them). We had our slate roof completely stripped, new membrane and new battens (they advised that some replacement slates would be inevitable due to the age of the roof and from memory they had to replace over 300 slates).

HTH

Mike

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks.

If that's the correct way to do it...then its the correct way to do it. Sigh...

I do hope there won't be any tile breakages in the course of taking them off and then on again. The cost on the one hand and the fact that I was told by an unrelated workman that its difficult to get that particular colour of tile any more and I could end up with a patchwork quilt look type roof if any of them break.

I gather that concrete tiles have a lifespan of 40-50 years. Which would mean that the roof will have had its expected lifespan at some point over the next few years, whereas my own personal expected lifespan is 20+ years. So, I've got the nagging wonder about whether these roof tiles will "see me out" anyway.

I'm taking a wild stab at a guess of around £2,000 to do this job (including some work on the chimney stack). This is a third major unexpected bill for this recently-bought house and I'm guessing at a total Unexpected Bill Cost (thanks to my "dear" vendor) of around £6,000 including the two other unexpected ones. That comes on top of the large expected bills for modernising this house anyway...:eek:

So I wouldn't be at all keen on having to do a whole new roof scenario right now (so I feel I might have to in effect throw away some money doing this now and then do a whole roof replacement in a few years). I cant stretch to a total swop now because I will soon run out of money to spend on this house and I wont have any spare income until I've got through the rest of the Pension Gap in between my retirement age of 60 (which I duly retired at) and my Revised State Pension Age (which is about 3 years older than that).

Am feeling a bit upset at the vendor landing me with this, when I'm pretty sure I mentioned I'm in this Pension Gap and it should have been obvious that I couldn't put any "income" towards the house for some time:(

Captain_Flack.

You mention a leak so there may already be broken tiles.

mwbrown

If I was in your shoes I would get a couple of roofers to have a look and see what they advise that should be done... It might be a case that the roofers might know where they can still get some reclaimed concrete tiles to match your existing tiles (they may not)....

We also had our kitchen and utility room retiled in new concrete tiles (all the slates were old and crumbly) and our roofer stripped the roof, replaced all the timbers, new breathable membrane and new battens and all the new concrete tiles for £700 (this also included moving our soil pipe (which is 3" (not the standard 4"), new gutter and downpipe on the extension and stone painting the rear and gloss painting the front and rear of the house (included in the £700 price).

Depending on where the leak is (and im not a roofer) but I have heard people mentioning having the first 1m or so of tiles removed, new membrane fitted and the tiles put back on (again depending where the roof is leaking - it could see you through until you can afford to have it sorted out fully).

HTH

Mike

we had our front and back (in slate done in Jan this year and from memory it cost us £2100 we are based in Lancashire.....)

shegar

Did you not have a full structural survey when you bought your house.?, it would have shown up that you needed a new roof etc, its going to be more than £2.000 to strip the roof down and re baton and felt...You may have to hire scaffolding .......

Its so worth the £700 plus for a full survey , its the biggest thing most of us would buy in our entire life , and you can just spend the next 10 years throwing money at it to get things put right ..........You cant blame the vendor really, you viewed it , you bought it , its not his concern that you are in a "pension gap", sorry if its sounds harsh, but that is the way it is , we all look after ourselves .................................


Make sure you get at least 3 prices for the works when you do go ahead.........Good luck and hope all goes well with it.........

A.Penny.Saved

If the roof felt has failed then that alone is likely to cause a leak if the amount of water on the roof is large and water gets in between the tiles. The roof felt allows water to run down the roof into the guttering if it gets beneath the roof tiles which it often can, especially with deep snow.

The whole roof felt doesn't always age evenly. The felt near the eaves, near the guttering can age faster than felt further up the roof. Replacing just the felt that has physically broken can fix any leaking without the expense of work on the whole roof which usually requires scaffolding. However it can be difficult and unsafe to do it on a ladder but you might find someone who can do it. An elderly lady near me had just the broken felt replaced by a man working from a ladder. The cost of such work should be considerably less than having the whole roof done.

Mankysteve

There are thousands(properly hundreds) of homes in the UK that have no felt and roofs don’t leak. If its leaking its slipped or broken tiles.

Now it could be slipped tiles due the battens being past it then its a tiles off job and you might as well replace the felt.

moneyistooshorttomention

Fingers crossed that I will be able to get away with just replacing part of the roof felt then and I will ask about whether we can get away with just doing the first metre or so for now. If I can get the roof to "limp along" at least until the rest of my pension turns up in a couple of years time and I have some spare income again then I could start saving up for a new roof (meanwhile I don't want this house taking all my savings and leaving none left for me in case I need them).

The thought had crossed my mind too that a lot of roofs are presumably still managing without any roof felt at all. After all, my last house was a Victorian terrace and it didn't have any roof felt for years after I bought it (ie until the roof failed and had to be replaced and, at that point, roof felt was put in).

27col

If your roof is leaking it is not because of faulty under-felt. It is because you have faulty tiles somewhere on the roof. It would be far cheaper to fix the faulty tiles than to re-felt the roof. Of course, re-felting the roof correctly will involve the removal and replacement of the tiles anyway. At that time the faulty tiles would be noticed and presumably replaced or refitted correctly.