UKC

We had a leak into our loft about 3 weeks ago, roofer came round and said we needed the lead sorting out, we paid him, then a few days later when the storm came through it looked to be leaking more, although it isn't conclusive as it could have been residual water coming through.  It rained a lot yesterday and it looks to be getting worse still in the loft, although only slowly.

This image shows the area he worked on.  To me, the ridge tile looks to be ill-fitted, and the lead looks to stop short of the apex.

https://ibb.co/zsNZQY2

Anyone more experienced with these things willing to comment and confirm it looks like a bodge?

 

That's crap leadwork 

That leadwork isn't great, it should be into the mortar beds.

Edit - beat me to it. 

Looks like the lead is short and needs to run above the ridge line meeting the opposite side, is the water running down the chimney breast?

That looks like a poor job. Not enough coverage, embedding and overlaps are all poor. I'd want the whole lot replacing IMHO.

Can you explain what you mean by 'into the morter beds' is that possible when the line of the led isn't parallel with the line of the bricks?

See image

Come on, it's not the roofers fault. He was probably distracted by all the attention his horse was getting on your drive.

OK, I've never seen that before and there are a lot of similar houses round here, thanks though.

I think i'm going to have a tough time getting my money back from him.

I'll let you all know how it goes.  Thanks for the input.

Good luck with getting your money back, as you say you see loads like that its quick and easy to do and 90% of the time it will stop a leak, still think its the top where you have the problem the lead needs to go over the ridge.

That looks a right botch. Done properly there should be individual L shaped lesd flashing units in between each slate. They are called soakers and the leg of the L then runs up the face of the chimney and they lap each other. A step flashing should be cut into the horizontal and vertical joints, going into the brickwork by around 30mm at least. These are then dressed down over the upstands on the soakers.

What you have looks like a piece of lead slapped onto the chimney, probably not linking into the slate roof at all (ie no soakers) and the guy has probably just dressed a bit of the felt up the side of the chimney and covered that with lead. Lots of Silicone probably involved too.....

Shocker of a job that, if you didn't pay him in cash then getting some one in who is actually a roofer to photograph and assess the work before actually re doing it correctly might give you a chance in small claims court?

Not sure how that would work but if the leak is not fixed then you stand a chance if the "qualified" roofer writes a reference letter of the quality of the botch job for you 

Done properly the flashing has a sawtooth/staircase pattern cut into its top edge, have a look at some other roof nearby. It should also go all the way to the top to meet and overlap the piece going down the other side.

Hard to see but possibly he's cut a groove in the bricks, parallel to the roof to embed the lead. At worst (possibly best really since you now need to get it fixed again anyway) it's just glued onto the brick faces meaning there's no unsightly diagonal grinder cut to point.

jk

I did some work on my roof recently after ridge tiles blew off. Ended up replacing half the ridge and some chimney flashing (not necessarily very well - who knows!). In the process I watched a lot of roofing youtube. I think the traditional way is the stepped flashing as others have mentioned. The other way I saw promoted was similar to what you have. The key thing was cutting in a groove about 30mm deep and about the width as a normal 'gap between brick courses' (idk if there's a technical word for that) into the chimney brick/stonework about 150mm up from the level of the tiles, parallel with the roof. I.e. basically along the line of where the top of the angled bit of flashing you have is. Then the lead is folded into the groove in the same way as it would be in the stepped flashing, just easier this way with no steps, well easier after you've cut the groove. Then the groove is filled with mortar. Idk if using silicone/sealant to fill the groove/brickwork mortar gap would be acceptable practice for a roofer or not, but I used roofing sealant/silicone on ours, was trying to get it done before it rained/stormed and that was quicker than mortar for me.

I can't tell from the picture if your roofer has done that or not - but based on my youtube knowledge (I admit not always the most reliable) it is an option that some roofers would use and happily publicly state that they do, so seems like a genuine method. If they haven't done the cutting a groove bit it looks like they've just stuck some lead flashing against the chimney, which is not ideal.

Fwiw having recently been up on my roof and seen the loose state of the chimney I'm thinking about removing it (the bit above the roof) in the summer. Our chimney is blocked at the bottom and it just seems like a pretty useless feature, the only point of which is to let water into the roof and possibly fall off.

Additional thought. Is the chimney in use? We had a leaking chimney and came to the conclusion the more robust fix was to remove the chimney

Yep did this as well with my back chimney. Tile over it and remove the problem forever!

Right messy job though, mind. 

To the OP - there is a lot wrong with that leadwork and I've never seen a roofer put lead on top of the tiles!

That's been really useful thank you all.

I'm not convinced I will ever see him again, so I'm not holding out much hope of getting any of the money back, but if I do I will buy any of you a drink!

The chimney is in use, so I can't just remove it.

Does the end ridge tile look wonkey?  Nobody has mentioned it, but I thought that was the bigger problem.  I believe it is a 'dry ridge' system if that helps?

It's kicked up, probably by his botched attempt to dress the end of the lead under it. Now I look, you can see the silicone or mastic he's splodged (technical term) all over it to pretend that it's waterproof. The ridge isn't helping but it's not the worst or only problem sadly. 

Sorry you got cowboyed,  you need to get a real roofer to sort that.

I think lead on top of tiles is normal.

Fwiw many of our ridge tiles are wonky as a result of the roof structure being quite wonky. Rain doesn't seem to be getting in though.

Looking at it it does look like a dry-ridge system. There should have a strip of 'ventilated ridge roll' underneath, which contributes somewhat to waterproofing. When I did ours I didn't find any advice about how to connect a dry ridge system with a chimney, so not sure what it should look like, sorry.

Hard to tell from the photo, but that just looks like a strip of lead snotted onto the side of the chimney, no cutting involved.

What's the actual roof covering (tiles), it looks like long horizontal strips of something?

Yes, it’s regular tiles. Something about the angle of the photo makes it look like strips, the ‘wrinkles’ are small mounds of moss.

Firstly, I’ve really screwed up. I don’t know his business name or address, he was recommended by his girlfriend on Facebook, so I only have his mobile number and bank account number/name. Probably not enough to pursue him through the small claim court.

He came round tonight to discuss the issues, he claimed it was all good, I asked for his name and address, he refused to tell me. I realised at that point I held no cards, it wasn’t worth pursuing so told him to leave.

It has cost me £550, but I’ll still be able to pay the bills so no actual harm done. I’ll have to get someone else to start again.

Is there anyone on here who is willing to take a look, between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle. I’ll start be asking your name and address…..

By any chance did the roofer have a strong Irish accent and offer to do your drive with a bit of leftover stuff at the same time. 

Dominic Cummins will have a look if it's near Barnard Castle.

I don’t know if that is a genuine question, a cultural reference I’m not getting or a bit of casual racism, either way no.

I think he could have done a better job even without his eyesight.

It was a thing 20 or so years ago. Irish travelers would knock on your door and offer to re do your drive because they had a "bit if stuff left over" and it would only cost a few hundred quid. 

If you were daft enough to say yes you would get a thin skim of gravel put down with maybe 1/2 of tarmac (the stuff) put on top of it. Inevitably after it was done they would then demand double the quoted money and you were left with a driveway that would break up if you cycled on it let alone park a car. 

I know 2 people who fell for it and it's not rasist if it's stating a fact. 

Sorry you got done. Looking on the bright side, at least it won’t take somebody very long to undo this ‘work’.

If it makes you feel any better, I got stung on the same job. Some scrote (who it later turned out was known to lots of local roofers as an idiot and they spent a lot of time undoing his work) did an awful job on my chimney flashings at £500 odd quid a pop. 

You've got no comeback against these people if they're not bothered about their reputation. Now I'll only use tradesman with a long list of positive feedback that I know will come fix any issues.

If it makes you feel any better, it's happened to all of us one time or another 

Im a joiner and do quite a bit of roofing. I can tell you now thats a proper shite job!

It doesnt have to fit in your brick work courses like in the other picture thats asthetics.

It should go up and over the ridge with your ridge tile on top and should also strictly speaking be under your slate. Though alot of bodge jobs will lap it over because they cant be arsed to do it properly.

I hope you have not payed your bill because that needs fixing properly!

It's 100% casual racism. By your logic others could wrongly apply the same slur to English based on the OP's experience. 

For some reason people think it isn't discrimination or xenophobia when it comes to gypsies. Or at least a lot seem to think it's fine to publicly voice that. If someone was a victim of a crime and someone suggested the perpetrator was probably black, that person would get piled on quite quickly. 

I think it's fair to say that minorities are disproportionately represented in gang-related activity and crime in London - but I'm pretty sure it would be racist to assume that your hypothetical drug dealer is a black youth.

Or to put it another way:

• All cowboy tradesmen are Irish people.
• All Irish people are cowboy tradesmen.
• All gypsies are Irish.
• All gypsies are cowboys.
• All cowboy tradesmen are gypsies.
• All Irish tradesmen are cowboys.
• All gypsy tradesmen are cowboys.

Which of those statements is the one you're asserting is true?

None of the above are true, there are some very good Gypsie tradesmen, they are not all out to con or steal from you. 

It's also 100% true though that I have only ever been asked if I want my drive done with "some leftover stuff" by men with very thick Irish accents that just happen to go door knocking only when a traveler camp pops up nearby. 

Sorry about your chimney problems (not the first time you’ve had bad luck with cowboys in that area, I know…). Just wanted to mention that every time I scroll past your photo in the first post, my momentary first reaction is “bass rock”.

To save everyone else the bother of trying to work out what you are on about…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_Rock

I’d never seen that picture before, but yes, I see what you mean. Perhaps I should sell wildlife tours of the roof.