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I'm suffering from stress at the moment due to a series of sad/bad and annoying things going on over the last 6 months. The latest is that my porch which has been leaking for some time has now caused water to enter the cavity wall and our stupidly designed fuse box is recessed into the wall by the front door so last Thursday, when we had 40mph wind and rain, i smelt burning and discovered drips running down the wires that go into the fuse box. Stuffed the small space above the box with kitchen roll. I then took my chainsaw to the ply ceiling as I couldn't lever it down without cutting it in half and had a good look/moped up with towels. I have deduced from looking at other houses in the street without porches that the original concrete plinth that would have projected above the front door is catching all the water running down the house wall from the failed roof and getting into the cavity. Its just bare concrete and goes into the brick and this has flashing on it on the neighbour's ones but whoever built the porch didn't expect it to leak.
The stressful part is I'd had 3 roofers round, 2 way before Christmas and 1 after and no quotes. When the fuse box flooded I tried them but no one would help. I contacted another that day and as they were rained off work 2 guys came to look but couldn't fix the leak then obviously and now I've had the quote in for 3.4k plus vat and am just wondering if this is reasonable as it's more than I was expecting and will be a stretch on top of other building issues we've had. The quote is to reuse the tiles, replace flashing all timbers and membrane. It's about 1.5m sq. 20 year guarantee apparently. Good website, reviews, local company etc. Brighton.
If this isn't way out I will suck it up what with it being so urgent but not having any quotes to compare with is making me very anxious and I'm too worried about scaring them off to ask about the cost. I should add it's only when we get strong wind and rain from the sw and not if we have heavy rain coming straight down so I'm worrying it's still going to come in under the shallow sloped tiles. (They said the slope is shallow) How much water is the membrane designed to catch if this happens? I think the concrete plinth should be sealed also as a fail safe and have suggested this. Any idea on best method for that? Any thoughts much appreciated.
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We had a very similar problem - leaking porch onto consumer unit, but in a porch with a stone tile roof., and we're in the North West so prices may be different.
I think we paid about £1500 for them to lift the tiles, replace the membrane, put the tiles back and, importantly, flash the porch properly into the front wall (this is what wasn't done the first time, it was just a mortar join down the tiles.
So, a fair bit less than your quote but if you can't get any others, and for your piece of mind, maybe just suck it up.
It looks a bit like a daft quote 'cos they don't really need the work. But, as I found with good carpenters last year, sometimes you need to pay a premium if you want something done reasonably quickly and to a good standard
A bit of a bodge but I've actually had quite good results with flashband to stop roof leaks. Not a long term solution but might get you through the winter and let you shop around for a decent roofer. Clean the surface and use the supplied primer and it sticks really well but it's pretty decent just whacked on.
Sounds very expensive!
Are the timbers rotten? If not I'd try and leave them which would reduce the cost very considerably.
I presume the flashing has failed or was just done badly - it looks like it's been leaking for quite a long time.
In the first instance I'd go and get some flashband and primer and get that stuck onto the wall above the tiles good and proper which will hopefully fix the leak at least temporarily.
edit: took too long typing! If doing flashband get a good wide one or you could put a strip just on the top of the tiles, then do the stripon the wall and overlapping the strip on the tiles.
If it's cold warm the flashband up in the oven slightly - this will make it stickier also. I've not used the primer before (I think it's an extra) but it maybe sensible at this time of year. You can use a roller to push the flashband against the bricks and pay attention to the joints.
Not a long term solution but might get you through the winter
I've got flashband over a south facing 10' wide sliding barn door and it's still good 15 years on!!
I don't think that will solve our problem. There is flashing and the roofer that came by resealed where it goes into the wall as a stop gap but it still leaks when the wind is strong. We're very exposed so it seems to be blowing up under the flashing and tiles. We could try using it inside the porch on the concrete plinth above the door.
Is it possible that the roofing felt is torn? Looks like a tear above the discoloured timber.
Can’t quite see for certain as the photo is small
Yes the felt definitely needs redoing but water was streaming down the wall too so it's also getting in at the top somehow. Trying to decide whether to just get it sorted now or try and bodge something to give us more time. All the lower timbers are rotten. 3 of the sloping beams still look pretty good.
£1200 got my (similarly sized) flat roof replaced with a rubber membrane, some re-flashing and new gutter on a dormer window in central Scotland, including all waste removed from site...
A DIY bodge will cost you less than £50 with a decent chance of success.
You won't know until you try
I'd try that first and then get a decent price to rebuild it.
Have you tried pouring water down the wall to see what happens?
I'm struggling to see water being blown up past the tiles. I had water getting past the flashing when the wind was in a certain direction - it was just being blown more onto the wall rather than being blown under the tiles.
Fixed it with flashband!
a picture of the external would be more helpful
A hot air gun work well with flashband - I had a split in the lead around my chimney that was allowing water to run into my roof space and water running down the wall. The hot air gun also dried out the brickwork and made the banding more flexible - I had to overlap some pieces to fit around corners and angles. Held out long enough to get some quotes and line-up a suitable tradesman
More pics
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double post!
OK, so the first thing I would do is run a good bead of silicone along the top of the lead flashing where it meets the wall - and along the joint of the two pieces of lead above the red tile!
I'd also give the render above the porch a tap to see if it's still attached to the brickwork as there may be a possibility that the rain is getting behind the render at the window above and then running down behind the blown render and appearing in the porch.
There are some big gaps between the tiles and the lead!!
Hiya,
The flashing should be tucked into a slot in the wall, then sealed. You normally have a special type of sealant between the lead flashing and the wall. My guess is the flashing isn't correctly installed and the water seeping between the top of the flashing and the wall. If it was me I'd dig out the area above and check the flashing, then reseal and if there is a crack in the flashing, replace that obviously too. Also check the width of flashing required for such a gradient of roof, there's a calculation somewhere 😉
BR
JeZ
Hi again,
Just seen the final photo. I think it may not be the flashing, but the mortar around the edge of the tiles, in fact I don't like that at all as water can seep underneath and into the roof cavity. These days they have edge tiles for this. It would be a better design. Sorry to say I would just get the roof off the porch and redo it...
BR
Jerry
Yes the lead is sealed into the house. The roofer tried that as an emergency repair. Also if it was coming in there it would do regardless of the wind direction. I've taken a photo at night with a torch and can now see it's definitely blowing up the tiles as they are so gappy and the lead doesn't sit flush against them. It's definitely also coming in along the edge. I've just had a 5th roofer round and he is doing a quote hopefully by end of week and says most of the timbers will be fine once dried out and treated and that we should use a different kind of tile that's flat.
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Thanks for all the advice. I think maybe I will try and get a tarp over the whole roof and tie it down as this guy says 5 weeks till he can do it.
Lift the flashing off the tiles apply flashband (yes, that again) to the tiles and then fold it back towards the front of the porch. So it looks like a taco or a U lying on its right side and then lay the lead back down onto the flashband.
So half the width of the flashband is stuck down well to the tiles and then the other half has the lead flashing lying on top of it.
This could make a temporary barrier to stop the water being blowing up under the flashing.
You've replaced a roof tile at somepoint, was it replaced because the tile was cracked? If so perhaps that was leaking and caused the wood to rot but you've fixed it and that's no longer your issue.
Is it possible the the leak is actually caused by the window above the porch and not the roof? Water could be leaking down the wall from the window? I had something similar when we had driving rain in a certain direction, the water ran down the cavity and in to my kitchen and its surprising how much water was leaking. I replaced the window and haven't had an issue since, a new window is significantly less than replacing the roof
My 914 Targa panels did that.
The roofer that sealed the flashing to the house recently also replaced the tile as that one had a hole in. It made no difference. It's not the window as the render is fine below the window. Though I will make sure that it's properly sealed under the window sill. The photo above shows clearly why the rain is getting under the flashing when windy so I'm going to work on temporary prevention of that whilst trying to get some more quotes in.