How old is my roof?

[Caroline1979]

Hello I’m new here and looking at having a new roof installed. I’ve been looking at roofs in my town and my current roof is different to everyone else’s so I’m trying to figure out if it’s the original

roof that was put on when the house was built (in the 70’s) can anyone help and give me a rough age of the roof based on the images attached? 
I know it’s a bit of a weird questions dnd leant impact on me getting a new roof, it’s for my curiosity really

The image with the most paint visible is my house and the other image is my neighbours for comparison 

Thanks in advance 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Caroline1979
Add photos

[markc]

Difficult to be specific but the top pic looks much older than 70’s bottom pic def appears from that era.

[bassanclan]

Top is probably 1950s, bottom 70s

[Roundtuit]

Top pic is a nice roof with bonnet hip tiles. Bottom pic is concrete tiles; a cheaper replacement perhaps.  Why do you need a new roof?  Looks in reasonable order from the outside.

[Caroline1979]

9 hours ago, Roundtuit said:

Top pic is a nice roof with bonnet hip tiles. Bottom pic is concrete tiles; a cheaper replacement perhaps.  Why do you need a new roof?  Looks in reasonable order from the outside.

Thank you, It’s an ex council house and is very very cold, I assumed it was older than the others in my town where the majority are still council owned and so their roofs would be more energy efficient, I was thinking a new roof would help keep the heat in, now I’m rethinking it! 

[ProDave]

The tiles themselves don't do much to keep the heat in.  It is the loft insulation and how well it is fitted that does that.  So changing the roof tiles at great expense would not reduce the heat loss.  If your house is the first picture with the bonnet hip tiles, I would not be replacing that with plain concrete tiles like the second picture.

[Ferdinand]

Agree. The top one looks 1940s/50s which looks like the age of the house; the other looks 1970s.

 

TBH, neither of those dates qualifies as "old" - a significant fraction of the UK housing stock has roofs put on before WW1.

 

Suspect that if you work on it, the 70s roof may suffer from broken tiles and it will be a self-creating piece of work. Concrete tiles have a shorter lifespan and do that.

 

Unless you have rooms in the roof it is about insulation up there and attention to detail. Have a word with your Council Housing Dept about free schemes in your area, probably ECO3 or ECO4, or something local. Some elements may not be means tested. You may need to remove any existing insulation first if there is more than perhaps 50mm of it.

 

F

[Caroline1979]

19 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The tiles themselves don't do much to keep the heat in.  It is the loft insulation and how well it is fitted that does that.  So changing the roof tiles at great expense would not reduce the heat loss.  If your house is the first picture with the bonnet hip tiles, I would not be replacing that with plain concrete tiles like the second picture.

Thank you, that’s really helpful 

[Caroline1979]

14 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Agree. The top one looks 1940s/50s which looks like the age of the house; the other looks 1970s.

 

TBH, neither of those dates qualifies as "old" - a significant fraction of the UK housing stock has roofs put on before WW1.

 

Suspect that if you work on it, the 70s roof may suffer from broken tiles and it will be a self-creating piece of work. Concrete tiles have a shorter lifespan and do that.

 

Unless you have rooms in the roof it is about insulation up there and attention to detail. Have a word with your Council Housing Dept about free schemes in your area, probably ECO3 or ECO4, or something local. Some elements may not be means tested. You may need to remove any existing insulation first if there is more than perhaps 50mm of it.

 

F

Thank you, changing the insulation sounds much cheaper and a better option! You guys are much better than a google search! 

[saveasteading]

Tiles do however keep heat out. They absorb  the first hit by the sun.

 

There is another reason not to retile until necessary. When stripped back, you may find some deterioration of the underlying  structure. Of course you would sensibly repair that at the same time. Costly.

Unless there are big problems i would leave it alone, and get another 10 years out of it.

Our roof 'needed' replacement 25 years ago according to a rival buyer. We have had  a few repairs. Some tiles are slumping due to batten failure but are hanging in there.  It is keeping the weather out which is its sole function.

[Radian]

I'm going to add that your roof is beautiful. It may be a little wavy here and there but it's made using quality materials that attract a heavy premium if faithfully reproduced today. Your biggest gains will come from loft insulation (including the loft hatch), draft exclusion, double glazing, and a correctly set-up heating system. Draft exclusion includes sealing between floorboards and also filling gaps under skirting boards as well as around all service penetrations through walls (e.g. waste pipes). Do you know if your cavity walls are filled with insulation?

[Caroline1979]

55 minutes ago, Radian said:

I'm going to add that your roof is beautiful. It may be a little wavy here and there but it's made using quality materials that attract a heavy premium if faithfully reproduced today. Your biggest gains will come from loft insulation (including the loft hatch), draft exclusion, double glazing, and a correctly set-up heating system. Draft exclusion includes sealing between floorboards and also filling gaps under skirting boards as well as around all service penetrations through walls (e.g. waste pipes). Do you know if your cavity walls are filled with insulation?

Thank you I feel quite proud of my roof now, I replaced the windows a couple of years ago the roof was going to be the next big spend but since reading the comments I’ll save myself the stress! 
I’ve looked at wall insulation but the bricks aren’t spaced correctly so it can’t be done, I’m no expert so took their word for it! There’s lots of gaps around my skirting boards so I’ll put that on my list of things to learn to fix - thank you! 

[Radian]

4 minutes ago, Caroline1979 said:

I’ve looked at wall insulation but the bricks aren’t spaced correctly so it can’t be done, I’m no expert so took their word for it!

Probably means the cavity is on the small side. If it's 50mm or more it would certainly be suitable for EPS bead fill and would reduce your heat losses.

Contractors tend to specialise in only one type of fill so if the one who measured up was using a mineral wool system they might have been picky.

[Caroline1979]

27 minutes ago, Radian said:

Probably means the cavity is on the small side. If it's 50mm or more it would certainly be suitable for EPS bead fill and would reduce your heat losses.

Contractors tend to specialise in only one type of fill so if the one who measured up was using a mineral wool system they might have been picky.

Thanks I’ll have a look into it, I did look at external wall insulation a couple of years ago but the cost was crazy and the people in my street that live in council houses say that they suffer with damp problems 

[Ferdinand]

 

On 04/11/2022 at 11:57, Caroline1979 said:

Thanks I’ll have a look into it, I did look at external wall insulation a couple of years ago but the cost was crazy and the people in my street that live in council houses say that they suffer with damp problems 

 

That's probably because the Council did not consider ventilation properly.

 

Sealing in a house that was designed to "breathe" through the walls makes it damp.

[Ferdinand]

On 04/11/2022 at 11:24, Radian said:

Probably means the cavity is on the small side. If it's 50mm or more it would certainly be suitable for EPS bead fill and would reduce your heat losses.

Contractors tend to specialise in only one type of fill so if the one who measured up was using a mineral wool system they might have been picky.

 

1950s house should be OK. Becomes questionable before say 1925, as cavities were still somewhat experimental.

[Ferdinand]

On 04/11/2022 at 10:12, Radian said:

I'm going to add that your roof is beautiful. It may be a little wavy here and there but it's made using quality materials that attract a heavy premium if faithfully reproduced today. Your biggest gains will come from loft insulation (including the loft hatch), draft exclusion, double glazing, and a correctly set-up heating system. Draft exclusion includes sealing between floorboards and also filling gaps under skirting boards as well as around all service penetrations through walls (e.g. waste pipes). Do you know if your cavity walls are filled with insulation?

 

If you are looking at floors as well, guess where you can put the old insulation you remove from the loft?

 

(If you consider that, ask here again.)

[Caroline1979]

41 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

 

(If you consider that, ask here again.)

I’m asking everything house related on here from now on, everyone’s been so helpful and given me lots to think about!  And saved me a lot of money haha