frslam

Hi Mr Punter, thank you for your reply. I did mention that there wasn't a great deal of information online regarding dry verge installation. I was hoping to get a perspective from a professional or experienced DIYer regarding how much dry verge overlap would be advisable, particularly in sometimes extremely wet and windy conditions, besides the obvious, that it just looks wrong to me. Hoping for an experienced person to say whether the preference would be a small gap between slates or trimming a slice of both end slates (or both) so the dry verge would butt right up to the barge board. Thank you.

Hi all, Seasons Greetings. I have a question regarding Dry Verge (Scott Verge) on a slated roof. I received a rip snorter kick back injury so couldn't slate the roof myself, my fingers are still there but the nerve pain is ridiculous in the cold. Anyway, I employed a roofer to install membrane, Dry Verge and slate. The roof is 13400 wide x 5400 high (@ 250 wide slates, 53.6 slates - the roofer obviously didn't want to trim any and laid out 54 slates, 53 slates with a tiny gap between them would have been just about perfect imho). The slates are CUPA Heavy 3's @ 400x250. When the roofer installed the membrane and Dry Verge, he obviously just laid out the slates until they at least covered the roof and wherever the last slate landed, installed the Dry Verge. The slates were butted up tight to each other (I know in some places there should be a 2 - 3mm gap, not usual up here in the Highlands). I told the roofer that the gap between the Fascia and the inner edge of the Dry Verge was far too big, approximately 50mm too much at each end. I have another house opposite which has the same Dry Verge on a slated roof but fitted tightly to the Barge. The Dry Verge should run into the rain gutter, one of my concerns is that the way the roofer installed the Dry Verge, the rain gutter would protrude the gables excessively. There isn't a great deal of detail online regarding the placement of Dry Verge when installed with a slate roof. Personally, if it was me who was installing it, each end slate would have been trimmed by a couple of inches, or use 1 less slate per course and leave a small gap between each slate. The slater was wanting £11k for a couple of weeks (labour only), maybe it's my fault for expecting a more detailed finish. The membrane fitment in regards to the Dry Verge was terrible as well. The membrane should just 'lap' into the channel of the Dry Verge, but in fact it barely reached it. I mentioned to the roofer that I could actually see roof timbers between the membrane and the Dry verge. This caused the roofer to quit. In relation to the location of the Dry Verge (overhang), when I mentioned it to the roofer, he pointed out a line on the Verge, telling me he installed it correctly, according to that line. I thought he was just making excuses because the line he pointed to was a moulding which diverts any rainwater that gets through between any slates, into the Dry verge channel - similar to how lead can have a slight fold to divert water. He also told me that up here, we don't install membrane into the Channel because it 'wickes' water. I disagreed, membrane is designed to not wick water. The amount of slating that was done before the roofer quit was certainly nothing worth writing home about and to be honest, as peeved as I am that the roof isn't anywhere near finished, I feel that I've dodged a bullet, now that he's quit. Does anyone have the definitive answer, should the Dry Verge be fitted as near as possible to the Fascia, regardless of how many slates are used in a course? Should the slates have been trimmed by a couple of inches at each end or use 1 slate less per course and add a tiny gap between each slate? I live in the North West Highlands and exposure to sometimes severe weather extremes can add another dimension to overhangs that are excessive. The old roof was lightweight fibre cement slates and they had a slightly less overhang, although there was no dry verge fitted back then, the tiles would still sometimes get ripped off in a storm. Am I being too fussy or expecting too much? Any advice would be so appreciated. Thanks

It's a shame. I'm not a perfectionist by any means but the 2nd slate and a half up is a bit 'on the piss' too. Had the roof been completed, in the scheme of things, there might be a chance that all of this could have been quite minor, everything else that has gone wrong in this job only ended up exacerbating everything else. I offered 50:50 split on the extra out of pocket expenses which means he wouldn't end up paying much more than the cost of the damage to 3 brand new windows. I offered that because all I want is the work completed. He refused to meet me half way and he didn't want to counter offer. I'm not sure if he's aware at all that I am a consumer, I should have a certain amount of consumer protection.

Okay, here goes. 1. I wasn't happy with the way the slates were installed ungraded. When the slates were fitted the (much) thicker slates were going on too high up the roof. Some of these slates were domed, quite a bit thicker in the middle than nearer the edges, more unsuitable for higher up the roof slope. They were just asking for trouble due to the gaps left when the next courses were laid. Example photo included. The first 4 or 5 courses looked great but the slates used here were more even. After that they looked terrible. 2. I was being charged the money for Roof Shield but a far less expensive membrane was being used. I didn't like the fitment at verge. 3. I did look for a resolution with emails to prove. The roofer sent me an email where he asked if we could meet, each of us bring a witness and see if we could sort this out going forward (paraphrasing). I replied, telling him that we need to sort this out, my extra losses due to the damaged windows, VELUX Flashings, extra costs for installing new membrane etc comes to £4,900.00. I offered, by email, to split all of this cost 50:50 with him (email is saved), so that neither of us is too much out of pocket. He would still receive about £9k for 3 weeks work. In the same email, I offered to grade the slates myself, for him. His responded to my email telling me that I had 'crossed my wires', that he would not be coming back to work for me, the meeting was for only putting the past behind us.

I am a customer and a self builder. I have worked with many 'Tradies', usually I do all the designs and plans myself and once I hand the design plans off to any Tradie, it gets done. I think the Roofer blurs the lines when it comes to treating customers versus other trades/builders. He assured me that he would work Sundays if need be, just as long as the weather was suitable. I sent him the photo of the membrane to verge detail after lunchtime last Sunday. His response (in writing) was "...why the f&%k are you sending me this s&^t on a Sunday morning anyway get a grip" I am certainly not easily offended, but if his work ethic and quality of workmanship was even nearly as good as his cursing, abusive behaviour, the roof would have been completed ages ago. For the record, all messages between the roofer and I have been backed up via software or screen captures.

I spoke to somebody today who asked me if there was a clash of personalities etc, was I treating him in a way that he had to leave the site? On the contrary. Trust was broken when he ruined 3 expensive windows, firstly agreeing to pay to fix them, then telling me that he wouldn't be doing that. Another issue arose out of the machinery hire for a telehandler. We agreed that we'd hire one for up to 4 weeks. The telehandler arrived but the roofer did not. The machine sat and did nothing for a full week, the roofer didn't even turn up. The machine had to go back because it was pre-booked elsewhere. A 2nd telehandler from elsewhere appeared for a few days, the roofer still didn't turn up to use it at all, then it also went back to it's owner. The roofer then sends me a message to tell me that I am responsible for contacting the owners of the 2 telehandlers and paying them directly. I strongly disagreed, the telehandlers are on the roofers invoice, when the roof is complete, I pay for the telehandler. I understand how it works, not my first rodeo. A roofer can hire a machine for a month to use on a job but use the telehandler for 1 or 2 days out of that month. I understand the bill for the month is still payable when the job is complete. On this occasion however, when the roof work hadn't even started, the roofer wasn't even here to operate the 2 telehandlers, the 2 telehandlers arriving, sitting doing nothing before returning to the owners having not turned a wheel on site but the roofer sending me a message to pay the bill directly to the owners to reduce his liability? Not a chance. Now we get to the crux. Someone asking me today how I treated the roofer? My other half tells me she doesn't understand how I can keep my cool so well with the roofers behaviour. When I explained to the roofer that I wasn't paying extra for the telehandlers because the roofer wasn't even here, the roof job hadn't started and they were returned before the roof work started, his response to me (in writing) was "I really couldn't help that the weather was f%$&ed, my van was f%$&ed and the guy I work with was f%$&ed with the flu. Charming! Can hardly wait until that particular passage is read out in court

Had the roofer come to work and done the roof when he agreed to, there would likely not have been a problem. On good days when you could get a lot done, I understood from others that the roofer may have been enjoying his favourite sporting pursuits. The membrane issue ended up being a bigger issue than it should have been. The roof was letting in far too much water even 9 days after it was installed. The 9th day was the 14th December. Turns out the VELUX flashings aren't available until the middle of January 2026 so that's a long time to have the roof in that condition, there are 4 tall VELUX windows on the front elevation so it would have been limited as to how much slating could have been done before the flashings arrived. The ungraded CUPA H3's were a problem. I own another house opposite the renovation which was slated in 2010 by a craftsman, when it was built. Pizzaro Paramo's (please excuse spelling) were used on that job and the difference between using ungraded and graded slates is quite stark.

Thank You. the guy was unbelievable. I paid all materials up front, including slates. On the quotation it says 'Materials for Roof - £8,500.00' (plus VAT). When the slates arrived I told him there were about 1,000 short. He didn't expect me to count them. He told me he had a pallet of slates in his yard that he could sell me for £1.60 each. Couldn't believe it, trying to pull a fast one! I said no way! I've just paid £8,500.00 plus VAT for materials, I gave him the dimensions which would allow 10% ish over the quantity needed to slate the roof. I then sent a screen shot taken from SMS Texts, reminding him that I gave him all roof dimensions for ordering materials. His reply to that? Are you telling me that you're not paying for Roof Shield because that's like another £500? I'm no Einstein but FFS, he's about as bright as a bloody eclipse! The conversations were on WhatsApp, I had to block him so he couldn't contact me to delete the messages. I have written it all down, from WhatsApp or SMS conversations, looks like I'll have to take legal action to recover costs for damaged windows, damaged velux flashings and the cost to re-paper the roof with the correct membrane.

I stripped the 400 odd slates off that the slater had installed because I was unhappy with the membrane and to be honest with you, with the slating in general. He said that he wasn't going to grade the slates, that they were good enough. I disagreed. While stripping the slates, I found some slates on the higher courses were way more than the 20% tolerance thicker than slates fitted below them. I know it's tricky getting to show this in a photo because the higher the slates are, the more of the riven edge you see, so it's hard to tell on this image but I just didn't like it. I said in a previous message that I expected the quality for £30k, forgot to mention, that figure doesn't include the several £thousand's for the scaffolding

is that the image taken from the verge? If you look at the broken slate and half, the second course of slates above that should give the slate and half a double cover but the broken top left corner goes down so far that it wouldn't be that way, just take a line across from the highest slates. I might be being picky but it's my £30k that's re-roofing the house, I feel that I'm paying premium prices but not getting the product to match. On the image above, where you can see the eaves course, a slate (or half slate) is missing altogether where there was no nail puncture in the membrane or on the eaves felt, so it was never installed. Ironically that corner of the house is looking at the South Westerly direction and gets the prevailing wind. Further, this is CUPA Heavy 3's being installed, all the eaves slates were installed with 1 nail per slate, according to CUPA, 2 nail fixings per slate should be used. Even if they didn't recommend that, I live in the North West Highlands, it's strongly advisable to double nail all slate courses including eaves courses

He wants money for work carried out to date, around 5 grand but I class his work as totally substandard including wrong membrane and incorrect fitment, poorly fitted slates etc. He caused over £1,700 worth of damage to windows and blamed me for not using scaffolding to protect them, cost me £1,000 to de slate what he'd done and re felt with the correct membrane (we had agreed roof shield - in writing, he fitted corotop), he cost me £1,000 when he destroyed the boxes containing velux flashings for 6 windows (doubles and singles) meaning they could not be returned. He missed out under eaves slate, laid some poor slate because he never graded them at all

Yes. The contract for the roof stipulated Roof Shield. He installed Corotop which is about half the price of Roof Shield (IMHO there's a reason why there's such a price difference) but he was charging me the price of Roof Shield. So I had to remove over 400 slates to re felt the roof, then it was re-covered in what was supposed to be used.

The contractor is definitely not coming back. His standard of workmanship is not up to scratch, he continually referred to the Roofing Membrane as 'Roof Shield' which I was initially happy with, so that's what I thought he was installing. I know Roof Shield is a premium product and it's all I would use in the west Coast of the Highlands. Problem was, when he said 'roof shield' he was meaning it as a generic term, (like people who call a vacuum cleaner a 'hoover'), and he installed 'Corotop' (poorly). He billed me £500.00 for the Membrane which is normally just over £50.00 a roll (less than 5 rolls) but priced it as the (much) more expensive Roof Shield, but he kept referring to it as 'Roof Shield'. It has now cost me another £1,000.00 to strip the 400 odd slates off the roof and install actual Roof Shield because it's got to stay like that until the middle of January 2026 when the correct Velux Flashings are available (another thing he totally screwed up, the order was in his name and he stored the boxes in such a way that they were destroyed by rainwater, but I had to pay for the materials before they were delivered by JEWSONS. By the time he realised that he ordered the wrong type of Flashings to be delivered, the cartons they were in were destroyed at a cost of nearly £1,000.00 and were un-returnable.

I would just like to add, I didn't secretly record the first conversation when the roofer admitted to breaking my windows and offering to pay for the damage. I didn't record the next conversation when he told me why he wouldn't be paying to repair/replace the damaged windows, but because of his behaviour, this is why I had to strike up subsequent window conversations with him in order to cover myself. It's actually hellish that it had to come to that to be honest

Now, the sarking usually has a 3 to 5mm gap on most boards but they are so full of water that they have expanded a bit. I know the images look a wee bit glossy like well treated timber, but that's not the case - they are very wet. Gently pushing your thumb into the timber sends quite a bit of water down your sleeve The rafter framing/trimming for Velux was carried out myself under instruction, the roofer quoted all opening sizes to me as I never had the windows on site. I only realised afterwards that the openings didn't allow for the insulated collars. This is evidenced by dimension details forwarded to me by the roofer. I opted for level top and plumb lower reveals.