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Roofing

Mineral felt vs GRP - dispute with builder

Anonymous user 09/03/2024 - 2.44 PM

Hello, We have a flat section (< 10m2) in our new extension. Our builder quoted to build the roof using GRP with 30 years guarantee, work executed by qualified personnel, but we now find that he used mineral felt and completed the work using his own men. When we challenged him about this, he mentioned the following to be reasons for choosing felt: 1) material cost difference is small (ca. 15£ per m2) 2) as our adjoining neighbour roof is felt, it would be a challenge to connect two different materials 3) the pitched roof section (including a valley?) in contact with flat roof has ash felt and he didn't want to disturb (risk of damaging the pitched roof). The builder did not communicate this change to us (we found this out when doing a review of work against drawings). This has a resulted in a loss of trust and we are obviously not happy with the situation. We would appreciate if you can provide some advice on checks/questions we should ask the builder to get a full understanding of the situation, should we request a compensation/rework, and suggested way forward If you require additional information, please let me know. Thanks for your help in advance. Sam UPDATE Thank you for your response. We had a roofer review the work and he was very critical of the quality of work carried out (felt orientation will lead to water clogging, gaps between felt and pitched roof in a few locations, felt lifting) and recommends redoing the whole work. It's tough lesson to learn but I am happy that we figured out the issue now instead of letting the roof rot. Thanks again.

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1 Answer

Anonymous user

Hi firstly a properly installed high performance felt is a better option then the grp, when you say qualified personnel with regard to the grp what you are referring to is someone who has been on a 1 day course as that is all it takes you can go in selco and for £45 they will teach you how to lay there product cure it which is what a lot of the so called roofers on here do. The 2nd point he makes is nonsense as he could have easily joined on and with regards to the pitch if he can use felt near the tiles he can use grp he should be removing the tiles anyway if using a naked flame I would ask him to do a patch test so you can see exactly what he has laid and how well it is stuck If you have concerns I would get a reputable roofer to come and check the work to make sure the felt has been laid properly But the main problem was using a builder to do your roof roofing is for roofers building is for builders Good luck hope all works out Kind regards Rmh roofing

Answered22 November 2016