House roof and survey advice

MattDB

Hi,

I'm a complete newcomer to buying a home and was hoping someone could offer some advice.

So...we've found a house we really like, we have a mortgage in principle so we're ready to put in an offer. Houses around us in this price range are getting snapped up very quickly so we don't want to hang about.

The thing that concerns me about lots of houses in this area is the roofs - I think as an area they must be getting to the end of their shelf-life. The house we're renting, after several leaks, needed replacing and since then I've noticed scaffolding all over the area.

The house next door to the one we're hoping to buy had a new roof so I'm anticipating that, at best, the other house will need a roof in the next few years.

So what to do... I understand there are different types of surveys I could have done - I'm assuming that the bank we get our mortgage through will give us this option?

Is it worth going for a detailed survey (I don't know what the different levels of survey are) which would pick up whether the roof will last another 5-10 years vs needs replaced imminently? I'm assuming that if it's got a few years left in it it wouldn't be something we could use to ask for an appropriate reduction in price, but if it's going to need replacing in the next 12 months we could ask for this to be reflected in the price.

We were going to offer the full asking price if they'll take it off the market.

This must be a fairly common issue?

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Lolly88

Regardless of what survey you opt for - building or homebuyers, the surveyor will say that you need to get a roofer to do an inspection as they are not specialists in roofs and will only comment that the roof looks like it might need doing based on a basic visual inspection and the same information you have used to deduce this point. A roofer might also be unlikely to give such a precise timescale of when a roof needs replacing.

buggy_boy

Ask a builder/roofer to go take a look, they should be able to tell you the state and if it needs to be redone and what the cost should be...

What age is the property?

What is on the roof?

A lot of the time the roof just needs re-felting and new batons, this should not cost the earth.

MattDB

Thanks for your comments.

So at what point do I ask a roofer to check this out?

I'm assuming that I put in the offer first?

MattDB

buggy_boy wrote: »

Ask a builder/roofer to go take a look, they should be able to tell you the state and if it needs to be redone and what the cost should be...

What age is the property?

What is on the roof?

A lot of the time the roof just needs re-felting and new batons, this should not cost the earth.

The house I think was built in the 70's and the roof tiles look at bit like this:

https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/product/marley-plain-tile-smooth-grey.html

sevenhills

MattDB wrote: »

The house I think was built in the 70's and the roof tiles look at bit like this:

https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/product/marley-plain-tile-smooth-grey.html

I live in a 60s built house, the council have recently replaced all the roof tiles on all the council owned properties, but the private owned houses still have the original roof tiles.
I asked a roofer that was replacing council property roof tiles, he said that the old ones will last for many years yet.

buggy_boy

MattDB wrote: »

The house I think was built in the 70's and the roof tiles look at bit like this:

https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/product/marley-plain-tile-smooth-grey.html

The property is not that old, the tiles will be fine, you might find some are broken and may need replacing, I would not worry too much, yes you may get issues in the future in which case rather than patching the felting it would probably be more cost effective to replace the felt and batons.

The only thing I would recommend to do now if not already done is add vents into the sofit, cover the facia and sofit with PVC, strip back the last meter or so of felting and replace with a breathable membrane and add a strong plastic drip tray from the last felting strip into the guttering....

So normally what happens is you get a lot of condensation in the roof because of the temperature change, with all the insulation we now put in lofts it does not dry out, the water condenses and drips on the inside and onto the ceiling below, this can often be mistaken for a leaky roof, the vents in the sofit and the breathable last meter or so of membrane allows the roof to breath, also the last end bit of felt is the most exposed so usually rots, especially if exposed to the westerly winds and sun, the strong plastic drip tray makes sure any water that gets through the tiles goes into the gutter and will last a long time...

Davesnave

I live in a 1970s bungalow with concrete tiles similar to those in your link.

Two years ago, I re-roofed, but only replaced the sarking felt with modern membrane, re-battened and added eaves trays, as above. The tiles themselves were all fine.

C20th clay tiles have a life of about 50 years, but the concrete ones ought to last much longer, judging by what happened to roofs in my old home cul-de-sac of 40 houses, where, rather oddly, there was a mix.