New Build Roof Tiles

Mashy

We moved into our new build Aug 13, and over the stormy Xmas we lost a roof tile. My dad who is a builder told me that it is poor workmanship and shouldn't have happened. Tried to get hold of customer care but they didn't ring back.

Anyway this morning another tile has come loose and is resting on the gutter. I rang cust care again and got through after a lot of holding and builders tell us it isn't a defect and we should claim on insurance. Another house on our development by the same builders (there are 3 diff companies) have lost a few but none of the other houses have. It's been windy here but not as bad as a lot of places.

Who is the right here? Is it poor workmanship or should we just assume this is going to happen each time there's a bit of wind and claim on insurance?

I'm a little concerned that the roof tile that is currently resting in the gutter could fall onto the access road below as soon as the wind picks up again and could potentially hit someone's car.

nidO

It's one that could go either way really.

Yes, your roof should be weather proof but then we haven't just had a "bit of wind" recently but some of the worst weather in decades, and it is going to damage things, roof tiles do come down when it's horribly stormy.

Equally though, I doubt this is something you're likely to want to claim on insurance, replacing a few roof tiles takes a few minutes and will quite possibly cost less than your excess to get fixed, especially if your dad is a builder.

The fact that a couple of tiles have come off alone is no proof that the roof has been constructed badly, if you're worried about it you may want to contract a roofer (not your dad, someone independent) to secure the tiles and while he's up there check on the general security and quality of fitting of the roof, if they deem it to be substandard ask them to provide you a written report detailing any flaws in the roof's construction and send their report and invoice to your developer informing them that you've had the roof independently checked and that any issues highlighted need to be fixed, and that you expect reimbursement for the cost of having the report done and your missing tiles replaced.

Mashy

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunetly replacing those two roof tiles will be rather expensive, we have a townhouse so a cherry picker is required. Also as two have now come lose the rest of the tiles look "disturbed"/out of place so it won't be long until they fall off aswell. Also no other houses on the 500 house development apart from ours and another house have had this issue.

The written report is a good idea, but again it requires a cherry picker.

My other half is adamant it's poor workmanship (we've had a few other issues with sloppy jobs) so he's going to ring the builders himself and if not I guess it's going to have a be an insurance claim.