Fair price for roof repairs? (Ed.)

Hi all,

Does the below look like a ripoff or within the range of reasonable? Thanks much for any comments, it's difficult to be able to evaluate what's real and what's BS for somebody who's not in this business. Live and learn. Thanks. -Jon

I recently had some work repairs done on the front of my Victorian terraced house (SouthWest of the UK). The main symptom was that water was dripping behind the gutters. I went up there with a roofer and saw with my own eyes that the wooden fascia was badly rotten (water had been dripping for years) and so it had to be raplaced.
Got a few quotes and ended up with a quote for £4800. Here is the work that was quoted:

Erect scaffolding
2 Remove slates on bottom meter of roof
3 Replace felt and battening in this area
4 Re lay existing slates and replace any broken slates in this area
5 Re pin all slipped slates on front roof
6 Re bed ridge tiles where needed and repoint all ridge tiles
7 Remove facia & guttering on front of property
7 Replace rotten wooden facia
7 Re attach upvc facia
7 Re attach guttering
8 Seal all soakers

Here are a few pictures. Job took about 2 days, with two people on the scaffolding.

left side (2 3 4 5; 7 rotten fascia was removed and replaced)


8 . Now, here it looks like they used Acrypol to seal (I saw the can of the material)


6 (repointed ridge tiles)


8 Same Acrypol sealing. Something I'm not sure about is the felt sticking out of the edge tiles (red arrow). It would prevent water from leaking from behind the gutter, but it seems such a temporary solution. I think one of them mentioned that you don't want to use edge drips because they lift the these kinds of tiles and could make things worse, but unable to know if they were BSing or what.

Did they supply the scaffolding or subcontract it. That could be a big chunk if it was the latter, if not and there work included erecting the scaffold then it sounds, from what you say, like between the 2 of them they might have spent 30 hours ( including travelling ) on the job. So knock off a couple of hundred for materials and they are charging something like £150 an hour. That is a rip off up here (Northern England) but not sure of rates where you are. How did their quote compare to others. Also I would have thought they should have fitted gutter trays which I cannot see.
Difficult to tell much else from your pics. Is the loose ridge tile yours or next doors and whose is the dormer would have thought it should have had lead flashing but just looks like flash band stuck on.

Hi, thanks much for your thoughts. They subcontracted the scaffolding (I think the scaffolding guy charged £350). Some of the other quotes were a bit lower, but what was getting quoted was somewhat different for different companies, so a bit difficult to really compare. There were some red flags maybe, such as that the guys started the job, disappeared for 2 days and came back over the weekend to finish it. I wonder if they can charge more over the weekend (overtime or something), and maybe that's a way to scam people. None of the quotations broke things down by materials and labour, and that is my fault for not insisting on it. On the sides of the dormer it seems that they did what they put down, that is "sealing all soakers". They have a warranty of 20 years for all that work, as per invoice, but I wonder if that is completely meaningless and unenforceable.

I'll start by saying Roofers & Scaffolders are a different breed to the rest of us.

It does sound alot of money but £150 per hour for two men. Is feasible. Definitely if the work was classed as an emergency job.

Are you happy with the work done. That's the main thing. I'd rather pay £4000 for a job done well, than £2000 for a sh!t job.

There are so many cowboys out there and maybe he's one of the good guys. And good guys want to earn good money, because it seems the bad guys are the ones who earn the most.

Where do you live? Is it a rich area?

Hi, thanks for your thoughts! I'm totally fine with paying more for a well-done job, crappy jobs need to be redone and so they are not a good deal in the long term, unless one just wants to house flip and get the next person to deal with the problem.

It wasn't classed as an emergency job. However, perhaps it became an emergency job because they had opened up a section on the roof, did not show up on Thu/Fri, and rain was expected on Monday. So, they ended up doing the job on Sat/Sun, which I imagine could lead to much higher labour costs. Was that intentional? Difficult to know. The quotation was given at the beginning, and so there wasn't an increase of the quoted amount for weekend work.

During the last rain the water behind the gutters was definitely fixed, so I'm happy with that. However, I'm not sure if these are temporary fixes that will deteriorate over the next 5 years and will need redoing. They gave a 20 year warranty on all work done, but that is puzzling. For example, Acrypol, the sealant they used on the dormer soaker area, has a lifespan of up to 10 years. So, how could they possibly give a 20 year warranty for that part of the job?

I live in a relatively wealthy area, but in the middle of a poorish region. I;m not going to obsess over it, as long as there are no leaks I'm good. But I want to learn something for the next time, hopefully not too soon. One can go on requesting quotations forever. At some point one has to stop and pick someone and get the job done...

The hardest thing is getting the right person for the job in hand.

We don't want to be muggedboff either way. Hopefully they wherecas good as their quote suggests. Fingers Xed

JonBolton said:

On the sides of the dormer it seems that they did what they put down, that is "sealing all soakers"

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I suggest you post the images on the roofing section of the forum and get opinions from pro roofers

Personally I think that sealing is simply a bodge -apart from just showing theyve "done something" I cant see what it physically achieves, if the lead soakers are failing or incorrectly done, they need redoing

Thanks Notch! It looks like it was moved to the correct forum (apologies). With regard to the "sealing", I have the same feeling, but I don't work with roofs and so I'm not sure I have good intuitions about what works: what is the point of brushing Acrypol over the soakers? If they are failing there is no point, if the are not failing there is no point either. For that price, I would have expected all soakers being redone, assuming they needed to be redone. Somebody else did quote redoing them with code-4 lead soakers, which seems like a serious job. That quotation was less than £4800, but the guy had missed the need to replace the rotting fascia. So, not exactly comparable.

Bod ... said:

I'll start by saying Roofers & Scaffolders are a different breed to the rest of us.

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What's that supposed to mean ?
We can't see how much scaffold there is .

We don't really know what the issue is or was . But to be honest it looks shoddy.
There are damaged slates still on the roof , CDRs missing .
I don't believe these were genuine roofers .

datarebal said:

What's that supposed to mean ?
We can't see how much scaffold there is .

We don't really know what the issue is or was . But to be honest it looks shoddy.
There are damaged slates still on the roof , CDRs missing .
I don't believe these were genuine roofers .

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I mean in general. They are a different breed.

My roofer was very good an I have a neighbour/mate who's a pretty good fella. Not all Roofers are geezers

Excuse my ignorance, what's a CDR?

JonBolton said:

Excuse my ignorance, what's a CDR?

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Copper (anti-lift) rivet that fits into the bottom hole.

Copper disc rivets .
Some are missing especially in the vertical . And damaged slates along side the dormer. There should be no need for acrypol

datarebal said:

Copper disc rivets .
Some are missing especially in the vertical . And damaged slates along side the dormer. There should be no need for acrypol

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Ah! Yes, I know what you mean now, I've seen those installed a while back. So, for example, are you saying that in picture 1 the black holes should have CDRs in them to prevent the tiles from slipping down or from being lifted by strong winds? Makes sense to me. Also, is it common to have plastic trays (whatever they are called) under the last tile row, to ensure water goes into the gutter rather than behind it? Somebody else used those on the back roof a while back. As it is, there is only felt sticking out from the last row of tiles, but that seems like a cheap hack more tha a durable solution...

datarebal said:

What's that supposed to mean ?
We can't see how much scaffold there is .

We don't really know what the issue is or was . But to be honest it looks shoddy.
There are damaged slates still on the roof , CDRs missing .
I don't believe these were genuine roofers .

Click to expand...

The main issue that was causing problems is visible in this picture, I think: Water was getting behind the gutters through that gap. Over time, it had rotted the wooden fascia (which was replaced with a PVC fascia). The felt underneath the first row of tiles was bunched up and old and it was replaced, together with a bunch of tiles (about one meter up from the edge).
The leadwork on the bay window (right part of the image, bottom) is only a few years old and so it did not need any work.