Leaking roof - what next

Cactus_Flowers

Whenever it rains heavily (so most of the time these days) the roof over my extension in the back leaks - it's not actually dripping, but I can see the wet patches grow on the plaster though they do dry quickly when it stops raining. There's no loft above this room so the rain is coming directly through the tiles into the room.

I've had a roofer go up on a ladder to replace the 8 or so slates that were cracked (he's taken pictures so I can see the remaining ones look fine), but the leak is still happening. Apparently, the (old) tiles are brittle so the roofer is not keen on walking over them more than he has to, but the only way I can see to resolve this is to take up all the tiles in the area affected and see if the membrane beneath is damaged (and if so, fix it). Has anyone else had a similar problem? Was it able to be fixed without having to replace the whole roof?

Or would anyone recommend a different way to go about getting this sorted? Or might I need someone more specialised than a general roofer? I will hopefully be getting the back of the house re-rendered in the summer so there'll be scaffolding up, so if sending one man on a ladder up is too risky I could try to combine the two jobs.

Veteransaver

Is the roofer sure it isn't  any flashing that is leaking. If he says the tiles are ok then also maybe the felt underneath may need replacing.
I assume you can't get into the loft space as it's an extension?
It's possible the leak was due to some freaky one off wind and rain event where rain has been blown under the tiles, we had that last year and it's all been checked and there is nothing wrong and it hasn't happened again.
Is it leaking every time it rains?

stuart45

A few photos could help.

ss2020jd

Yes I had a similar problem with water coming in, leaking and dripping only during really heavy downpours. It was difficult to pinpoint where exactly it was from as there were a few issues with the clay pantile roof, gutters, leadwork, valley gutter pointing and ridge tiles. But the most likely cause seemed to be a hole found in the membrane underneath the tiles, which was replaced and re-battened. I only had a portion of tiles that were replaced - they had cracked and flaked after moss left by previous owners for years had frozen and caused damage.

I didn’t need to have the whole roof retiled for that although a few of the quotes did only want to do a full reroof, I did find someone eventually who found the cause and fixed what needed to be done rather than a whole roof job. 

Although I was unhappy with the leadwork, which looked shocking, I was happy with everything else and so far the leak hasn’t returned (touch wood) and it’s been watertight since around June last year. He did offer to come back to redo that part with Leadmate but it’s on my list to get a specialist leadworker (or plumber!) to look and redo. Although it looks bad (although I have stopped staring at it now!) there are no leaks. 

Have you also checked your gutters and are they all clear? I also had a problem with leaking union joints which the kind folk on here helped me identify. I had to replace the rubber gasket at the joint and it did the trick.