Roof/Chimney repair- please help

chamelious

We've just completed on our first house. The survey we had done said the roof and chimney was in a bad state of repair. The vendors had someone look at it, and quoted for basically a full rebuild, at a cost of just over 4k.

We had another company (apparently very reputable) have a look at it and they said it doesn't need a new roof, the roof itself is pretty new (the truth), it just need some repairs, approx 600-700.

I called him today after completion to arrange the work, and it became clear that for some reason, they just looked at the roof from the outside. They didn't look at the roof from the inside, and they didn't look at the chimney within the loft, which is what "looks" the worst (its all crumbled).

He's coming to look tonight but im not hopeful hes going to be much help, among things he said on the phone was "in 40 years i've never had someone ask me to repoint a chimney stack".

I have no idea what a chimney stack is, i don't care, i just want everything thats knackered to be fixed. What do i do? See what this roofer says tonight, then find a builder, i guess? To come look at the bits of the chimney inside the loft?

This is a photo taken form the survey, from inside the loft:

http://imgur.com/a/g5zaX

Wookey

I can only desktop zoom in on that photo but it doesn't look to be in bad condition at all, there might be a few small cracks (hard to make out) but for an old brick chimney they are to be expected. If possible you could get a simple smoke test done on the chimney to check for leaks.

If the exterior brickwork is in as good a state as the internal in your photo i would not be worrying to much, surveyors are going to pickup on every little thing they can to cover there own !!! if something later turns out faulty.

chamelious

Thanks for that. The chimney is completely disused, not sure if thats a factor here?

FreeBear

Looks fine to me too. Judging by the different colours of cement, it has had a bit of repointing done in the past. Nothing to worry about.

Chimneys do need repointing from time to time, but this is usually on the outside where it is exposed to the weather. Very rare that it needs doing inside the loft space.

chamelious

Thanks, these responses are encouraging, guess i'll see what the roofer makes of the inside of the roof tonight, i'm still a bit baffled as to why they didn't go up there in the first place.

teneighty

I think there has been some confusion.

The chimney stack is the freestanding chimney you can see outside above the roof. The photo shows the chimney breast in the loft. If you asked them to quote for repointing the chimney or chimney stack they would probably just look at the outside.

It would appear that a probable combination of water penetration and sulphate attack have caused the bricks to deteriorate. Depending how bad the damage is will determine what remedial work is required.

If the flue is redundant then rebuilding seems excessive. If the brickwork is still structurally sound you could leave it as it is assuming the water penetration has been fixed and the flue is capped and vented. If you are worried about the look and mess of the crumbling brickwork you could get it rendered (the chimney breast NOT the chimney stack).

chamelious

Thanks, i assume i can't rely on this roofer to determine what needs to be done to the breast in the loft, would this be a builder?

The chimney external does need some work including the pointing and flashing so i assume this is the probably cause of any water Ingres.