bluebellcottage

Hello, I have a question regarding the flashing/wrapping of our dormers. I understand how a dormer should be flashed if it’s in the roof I.e lead corners and a lead apron however our dormers run in line with the wall on the house so I can’t see how this would work and can’t find another detail for it. Currently I have run the soakers right down to the bottom of the slates with a view to cutting them down so that water doesn’t run off the side of the roof. I understand this is probably wrong but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The pen line marks where I had planned to cut the soakers (or possibly a little lower) any advice would be very much appreciated.

I have finally made it to the ridge on my roof and have a couple of questions regarding the top slate. please ignore the rough nature of the slating and mismatched ridge roll, these were my reject slates and only fitted for mockup. Is this the correct way to fit the top slates in terms of the lap? The area where you can see the batten seems vulnerable but I can’t see a at around this. Using the dry ridge system leaves a small gap between the slate and the ridge tile, around 5-10mm. This is because the ridge tile has bottomed out on the ridge batten. I can’t really drop the ridge batten because it will leave a dip in the top of the ridge roll which I believe is not desirable as it can collect water. Adding a fillet under the top slate on the top batten improves the gap and makes the slate more stable as the slate now can’t rotate around the nails and lift the bottom edge. the only other way I could get around the ridge tile gap is to go and find some taller ridge tiles or drop my ridge batten down.

I’ve just had a look at these, they look like a great bit of kit and I’m sure they would save a lot of time over my hand cutters.

That looks like a similar cutter to the one I have … it works very well. https://www.roofingmerchant.co.uk/product-page/edma-slate-cutter-with-punch?utm_source=google&utm_medium=wix_google_feed&utm_campaign=freelistings&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADh2aGz86ARgMDWSyV8Xo_T_LhvmA&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6Iq-wZjgiAMVYWdBAh3VeDiGEAQYBiABEgJ6TvD_BwE

@Gus Potter I should have made it clear in my post that I am the guilty party when it comes to the slaying of the valley. For various reasons I have ended up slating the roof myself and am generally fairly handy. I have however quickly become aware that l slating is an art and would have been best left to the professionals had this been an option. i have used a slate cutter for all the cuts so far and laid them riven edge up (with the exception of the under eaves course, this is the other way up) is this correct and what you refer to as the slates needing a tail in the valley? Thank you for any input.

Thank you both for your advice. I think I’m possibly overly worried about the small triangle of slate being insecure. Will the slating that has already been done be ok as it is Or will I need to strip and re do this? The valleys currently have 65mm cover from the slates, they have a 25mm up stand which is why they look like there is a large gap where the lead is flat on the roof it’s wider than 65mm overlap as the lead roll is 450mm I followed a diagram forwarded from our architect for this but understand now that it’s possibly over complicated. Does this sound ok or am I setting myself up for a leaky roof?

Does anyone have any good advice on using slate and a halfs? I seem to find myself out of bond and unable to rectify the problem without using cut down slates to correct this. i have attached a couple of pictures to show what’s happening.

Hi Nod, thank you for the reply, I would have made the soakers wider but had already cut them to size and I would have meant another trip to the builders merchant and holding my father in law up, he was also of the opinion that water doesn’t travel sideways normally. The pitch on our roof is 40 degrees and we have about 90mm of headlap so hopefully we should be ok. no I have to decide if I do the next side the same or use a slate and a half?

This week we have been skating in our roof, I have slated uptown and past the first dormer on the front and back of our house and am worried about the detail of the soakers and slates. i understand a slate and a half should have been used here but was persuaded to use a 9cm wide slither of slate instead, wind uplift probably isn’t a problem as it will be behind/below our cladding. i am basically worried water from the valley above will run off the soakers and down the side of the 9cm slates. i have included a photo for reference.

Hello, we are currently in the position where we need to purchase both a structural warranty and site insurance. I have had quotes from Protek along with some others. I would like to use Protek as their price was very competitive but just wondered about others experience with them, both their customer service and the situation with remortgaging once the build is complete without NHBC. our main builder isn’t NHBC registered and we will be completing as much work as possible ourselves so NHBC isn’t an option. Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi, thanks for the reply’s so far, location is North Norfolk, so would come under English rules. Building Control would be done through local authority as this is the builders preferred option and being a family member we trust his opinion. I did ask them and they basically just gave me two price options. builder’s advice is to dig footing and fill at the same time as the house. one mortgage adviser suggested it could cause a problem with sign off to remortgage. A building society I spoke to said there would likely be no problem as they had never experienced one in the past.

We are currently in the process of getting ready to start building. I have been advised different thing by different people. We have planning permission for the house and garage but are not planning on building the garage for a few years (unless funds allow earlier). our problem is that we have been advised it might be a problem to get the house signed off without the garage built if they are done on the same application where as others have advised this wouldn’t be a problem. Does anyone have experience of this? thanks in Ada Vance for any help.

Hello, Thank you for your reply and the warm welcome. Yes, you are right we appear to have ended up going through two brokers now in an attempt to avoid the fees associated with the original broker I went with (buildstore). The mortgage would be wit Furness building society, who as far as I am aware don't deal direct with customers for self build mortgages. We are in East Anglia, so England rather than Scotland, our planning is for a build with around 45% timber cladding and 65% brick/Glass (blockwork construction beneath cladding) , I believe we are somewhat limited by that with mortgage lenders due to this. P.s. Yes the fees were a bit of a shock although was expecting them to be higher than normal.

Hello, I'm new to the forum, it looks like a great resource for information from a really knowledgeable group of people. The first question I have (first of many I expect) is with regards to Buildloan's fees. I initially started an application with Buildstore myself but didn't find them very forthcoming with information and after reading about their fees on here decided to use an independent mortgage adviser. Fast forward a little and I found out the product he is recommending is through Buildloan which I guess is subject to the same fees and Buildstore. The main fee from the breakdown I am unsure of is the Additional Security Fee, this is charged for both the advance and arears stage mortgage and seems to be to cover any additional risk, will this be charged whoever I get a selfbuild mortgage though or is this a "stealth fee" from Buildstore? Any help would be very much appreciated.