Leak - re-render, paint, fit air bricks, remove tiles

boots_babe

Hi all,

We have just moved house into an old farm house (not sure of age, but seen it on maps from 1844), and found we have a leak in our living room (10 year old extension), which has a flat tiled balcony above it. Have had a nightmare getting anyone to look, only been able to get one person out, ideally would have wanted at least a couple of opinions on the cause, and quotes. He *thinks* the leak is caused by the cracks in the render and gaps in the coping stones on the balcony above. He's proposing re-rendering the living room extension and painting it.

He also thought that the tiles on our balcony were badly fitted and could allow water ingress (some are uneven) and proposed removing them, and replacing with high quality artificial grass. We separately also have some damp issues, and he will fit 12 ventilation bricks for us.

His quote is £2800 for all the above MINUS the fitting of the artificial grass, which we'd have to arrange separately ourselves. His quote wording just says "Re-render the extension and paint, fit 12 ventilation bricks and take up the balcony tiles." When we went back to say, can he please confirm that this quote definitely includes fixing the leak, he responded to say it hopefully should do provided that issues were what he thought. Left me thinking we could pay all this money then still have a leak though?

Few pics to hopefully show you the size of the area to be rendered, and the coping stone gap and render cracks that he believes are causing the leak. Leak is at the top right of the bifolds on the pic below:



Close up of render crack:

Close up of gap in coping stones:

View of extension from other side - note the crumbled render at bottom left corner:

boots_babe

View from tiles on balcony, these are sloped to a drainage point at each corner, it is draining but only slowly, it's not blocked:



And pic of interior leak damage:



Many thanks.

CarefulSheila

Could be a usual felt roof problem don't they need re-doing every ten years?

Cracks may be frost damage from where it got wet?

boots_babe

We've since had someone come to look at it, who has identified a lack of cavity trays all around the extension. They've suggested we need to remove the balcony so that they can get at the brick and install cavity trays. Awaiting a quote but sounds like it'll be expensive.....

pramsay13

Is it actively leaking when water is draining?
Can you dye the water to see where it ends up?
Unfortunately any work like this is a bit of guesswork so you will never get a guarantee that it will fix a leak.
Looking at the photos most of that work definitely needs done anyway, and even if it isn't causing the leak it certainly won't be helping. 
Always worth another opinion. 
I would be trying to get out a roofer that specialised in flat roofs, damp specialist, or even just a general builder to see what they say. 

boots_babe

You asked if it's actively leaking - we've never seen water dribbling down the walls, but it's clearly seeping through the plaster from what we can see internally. The marks you can see on the photo were not there when we moved in, so have occurred in the last 2 months. 

We're trying to get someone else to come to look at it, both in terms of cost comparison but also probably more importantly to see if they suggest the same solution to rectify. Proving very difficult to get anyone to come out though!