BobAJob

Do you think it needs ripping out? The new roofer said he may have to completely rebuild the valley, which sounds expensive to me.

New roofer has suggested ripping all the mortar pointing out and redoing them. Both valleys. £1300 which seems expensive. He'll also replace the 4 cracked tiles on the first valley that the previous roofer decided not to replace. The quote also includes taking the ridge tiles at the top of the valleys off, reseating and remortaring them. I feel so disappointed and let down by the original roofer. We hired him to redo the mortar in the valleys and clean some moss of the roof and then it turned into badly fitting a dry ridge system and not doing the valleys properly either and now I find out the roofer has a bad reputation locally and has been known to get violent. All we wanted was a relatively simple job done and now it's a mess and will cost us more to put right.

What do you think of this valley pointing work?

So how do you find a good roofer and know that they know what they are doing?

Yes, that is what I have learned.

I'm really sick of bad roofers. We have this latest issue, which I think we can resolve fairly easily. We also have a flat EPDM roof which was installed 2 owners and 7 years ago. It leaks when we get heavy rain. I had a roofer from our insurance company look at it and he discovered the rubber had been cut too short so it didn't go up under the roof felt far enough, so rain from under the tiles runs down the roof and makes the rubber bow and then the water comes in. I've had a number of roofers look at and the last one discovered that the rubber wasn't actually glued the boards on the roof. The whole thing can be rolled back. I spoke to the roofer who installed it, who is supposed to be firestone trained and he says it leaks because the roof felt is deteriorating. The insurance roofer said the felt is fine. The reasons it leaks are: 1. The rubber has been cut too short and not laid far enough up the pitched roof. 2. There should be a barge board or other board at the end of the pitch roof to support the rubber. Because there isn't the rubber gives which causes water to pool in the dip and when enough water has accumulated it causes the rubber to bow and pour the pooled water into the ceiling. He also discovered a number of nail holes in the rubber which allow water in. The insurance company roofer ended up gluing patches over the nail holes and pulling the rubber as far as possible up the roof. So now I have another rubber roofer booked to rip the whole thing off and redo it including new roof boards if required. I just wish I could report these people so they no longer get work and screw up people's houses.

I am awaiting the quote from the new roofer before I make my next step. No word from the old roofer even chasing payment, so clearly he doesn't care. I think he knows that I know his game. I can put it in writing and offer him the amount I am willing to pay him. He won't like it but then I don't like the work he has done.

I have given two chances to get it right. The second time he redid the work to remove the ridge tile with the massive gaps to the side. I had him back last week and asked him to redo some mortaring and look at why the dry ridge material wasn't stuck in one place. He told me the material didn't need to be stuck to the roof tiles. Today the new roofer got on the roof and discovered that the reason the material wasn't stuck to the roof was because they hadn't removed the protective backing strip from the glued section along 14 metres of the roof. He suspects it is the same on the three runs of 14 metres. The original roofer went off in a sulk after threatening me and demanding payment in cash. It's now been almost two weeks and he hasn't been in touch so I am assuming he is not interested in fixing it. Therefore, I am getting a quote from another roof to fix the first roofer's work. I really don't want the first roofer back because: 1. He doesn't know what good looks like. I'm not a roofer but I've watched some videos on YouTube about it and I know I could do a better job of it. 2. He was abusive, confrontational and told me he didn't want to get into a fight about it. Apparently, him having to come back to the property costs him money. All we wanted was a simple job done right the first time. We're now up to a third visit if he returns and I can't trust them not to cause damage.

No, because apparently the original roofer is well known in the area as being a nasty man and has been known to turn up at people's doors with his men. The new roofer tells me that he often has to redo work that the original roofer has done. You'd think it was pretty easy to remember you have to peel off the protective backing paper on the glued section of the dry ridge material before you stick it to the roof. The new roofer peeled a 14m long strip of backing paper off the glued section. I stood there and saw him do it. Doh!!

Had the roof checked by another roofer today and he discovered: 1. The valleys were all rough and a bit cracked. He said if someone did that on a building they'd told to go home. 2. The first roofer had forgotten to take the backing off the glued sections of the dry ridge material over a 14 metre section, so it wasn't stuck to the roof at all. 3. One section of the dry ridge has large gaps in so need to reposition the tiles to tighten it up. So I'm thinking I'm not going to pay the original roofer his full price. Not paying for the valleys at all.

It looks like the bottom may be sitting on some stones or random bits of mortar and thus not sitting quite right. Maybe lift them and remove any random bits so they sit better. The bottom two could then do with pointing to fill the space underneath them with mortar like the others above them.

Although the roofer told me it was absolutely fine and all his other customers who be happy with it. Now I don't trust a word he says.

Yes

Roofer hasn't returned yet and still hasn't been paid. Onto the next roofer to do what should be a very simple job

A couple of ridge tiles they've knocked corners and big chunk off which to my mind means wind and rain can get under the tile and there's one that they had to mortar to tie in with valleys in roof but they have left it high at one end and low at the other which means the dry ridge union doesn't hold it properly. I think it needs mortaring. I want the chipped tiles replaced with reclaimed matching ones not non-matching chipped off corner ones like he before. I think it would take them an hour or two tops to fix them but apparently that costs him money and he'd rather shout at his customers instead of fixing relatively simple issues. I'm not impressed. Who on earth thinks that gap around a ridge tile is good? The roofer told me his customers who think that was good and I'm a difficult customer. And after all this and £2000 spent I still end up with two cracked roof tiles on the house because they didn't replace them before they remortared the valley. To replace them we have to break the new mortar and then remortar again.

He no showed. There's a surprise. He still hasn't been paid. He'll be back.

He's back tomorrow and is starting to get aggressive about his money. I thought he was going to hit me the other day, which would just result in a call to the police. It was only that one tile was really bad. On the others his men had not removed all the mortar from the edge of the tiles. My concern was that this mortar would eventually fall out and then the tiles would get loose. I made them remove all the tiles and remove all the mortar and then put them back on again. I found it pretty bad that I had to them what good looks like. I'm no roofer. I've just watched a few videos on youtube. However, I know a botched job when I see one. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be less aggressive and less complaining and demanding of his money. If he's not, then I'll ask him to leave as I didn't hire him to be treated like this. He's still not getting paid tomorrow.

No, I haven't paid.

Roofer says all his other customers would be happy with this. According to him it's a good job.

My roofer came back again today as I complained about two last snagging issues. Then he started shouting at me that I was costing him money by having to come back to fix issues. He said he didn't want to get into a fight about it. It's ridiculous. I'm costing him money because I'm pointing out to him that he hasn't hasn't done the job right and I'm asking him to fix it before I pay him. He now says that it's not important that the dry ridge system fabric is not stuck down properly in a few places. There was me thinking it was there to stop the rain getting into the roof and allow the rain to flow away from the ridge. If I was him, I'd just get on the roof and stick it down. It takes 5 minutes and makes the customer happy with the job, but not this guy. Now he's demanding payment in cash. I said no. Simple solution to that one. Do the job right the first time and nobody complains and no return visits

So is the weight of the slabs causing something to flex or separate and thus it leaks? Are the boards/roof under the slabs firm enough to take the weight of the slabs without flexing? I've had some problems with both flat roofs and paving and had many conversations with roofers and patio layers. I think they say that paving could always be kept two courses of bricks below your DPC as rain droplets can bounce that far and thus breach the DPC. I'm assuming your upstands are in place of a DPC, so they should be higher especially around the bottom of door where there's a chance for water to get in. Is the paving sloping away from the house and towards the drains so that water doesn't pool against the house?

A Henry is pretty good. Lots of suction and pretty cheap. You can get them as Warehouse Deals from Amazon if you don't mind the odd scratch or torn packaging. I use mine for vacuming up after DIY jobs like wallpaper stripping, sanding, etc.

It seems to do a good job at sucking all the moss and dust out of the gutters after a moss clearing job. It probably saves a lot of time if you were doing it professionally.

Roofer came back today and I got him to remove every tile, clean them up properly and refit them tighter than they were before. Also got him to replace mismatching tile with one that matches. Cost him £4.80 for the correct tile. Not sure why he couldn't fit the correct tile the first time round.

You should never use a pressure washer on a roof.