Replacing soakers between former and roof

boglehead

A leak appeared where the dormer and the roof meet, as the zinc soakers weren’t installed properly and weren’t long enough. Although the roof is only 4years old it appears to be the result of sub par craftsmanship.

On the back of the recent floods across the UK, it’s been extremely difficult to get people to come to quote such a “small” job (as opposed to a whole new roof) and only 1 roofer came to quote me.

As a result, I am not in a position to get multiple quotes - hence my post on the forum.

That 1 quote came to £1250 to lift the tiles alongside the right side of the dormer a 3m edge (only for the one side where the leak is), remove the zinc soakers, replace them with the right length felt soackers, fix them w battens and put the tiles back.
There is no need to put scaffolding.

Looking at buildsherriff and other forums it feels a quite steep, even for the Greater London area. What do you think?

What feels uncomfortable is that I suspect all the edges of my dormers will eventually suffer the same fate - and I have 5 dormers in total so 10 edges... 😱

Tom99

Felt soakers?

ANDY597

Remember that soakers are right angled so they continue up the cheeks of the dormers as well.

Think soaker, slate, soaker, slate then dressed around the very tops and the very bottom. Essentially everything overlaps each other to give you your waterproofing. All they are really doing is waterproofing the right angle join where dormer meets roof.

Some dormers have full length valleys rather than soakers. Essentially a long gulley. But really they do the same job.

So the job isn't as easy as stripping off the tiles/slates and away you go. They may have to strip off whatever material has been used to clad the sides of the dormer as well to be able to remove the old soakers depending on its construction. Some soakers sit outside edge like a brick chimeny would have, some soakers and flashing are put on before cladding etc, not enough detail on your post to assume.

Zinc is much more expensive that felt soakers.

Id have a look at lead replacement flashing and price up the materials for the job, you can then decide whether the residual is a fair labour price. Make sure you keep the old zinc and scrap it yourself.

Id say your shopping list would be

Potentially some replacement tiles or slates, stripping back can lead to breakages

Valleys or new soakers

Adhesives, nails etc depending on manufacturer fitting requirements

Material to replace anything broken, damaged on the cheeks if applicable

ANDY597

Probably lead replacement like ubbiflex flashing,
Essentially looks like bitumen on top, aluminium mesh construction on a rubberised back.

Can't see it being a shingle esk soaker...

boglehead

Thanks for your input. I will wait a bit longer and see if I can get someone to come and quote the job.

ANDY597

Also, it's worth considering that the source of the leak could be elsewhere. Rain has a bad habit of finding its way under and in.

Id visually looks for any missing tiles/slates above the leak as your first port of call. Could just be a simple fix.

Would I rush out and get rid of the zinc soakers, probably not and consider if haven't leaked until now, what's actually changed.

Missing or broken slate/tiles first to check.

boglehead

Quick update for people that might read this thread later on. I found a local roofer recommended by my neighbor who did replace the soakers and redid the flashing in 4hours... it did cost me £300 all in.
It’s rained very hard last night and I can confirm the roof is fixed :-)
I am amazed how different the quotes received were. I even had received a laughable 4.5k quote from a guy who could “start tomorrow”.........