Note: I do not recommend using RoofTec for flat roofing work, the easiest of the roofs they replaced leaked in multiple places due to poor design.
Covering a few days of roofing work here.
Early Tuesday morning two Roofers from Rooftec (same ones we met on Friday, in the end they did all the work below) arrived at the house and started stripping the front dormer window roof. Would have took photos, but lost the camera!!
This is what they took off-
Their new OSB/Sterling board with associated fibreglass system attached (so they did at least overboard and not as I first suspected, just add the fibreglass to the original roof (so that’s not as bad as I thought).
Below that was what appeared to be a bodged overboard attempt with felt roofing. So someone had fitted a new flat roof over the old flat roof, though the wood used seemed to be a mix of various types!!
Below that was the original felt roof, whoever over boarded above that hadn’t even bothered to remove all the stone chippings that are used to hold the felt down, so it was a really bad job!!
So there was three layers to the roof, one new (added by Rooftec) and two old.
Because of the layers it took all day to strip and replace one roof. The roofers worked really hard and I’ll add I did work out why their prices are so reasonable, they are mad!!
Imagine 4 storey high ripping off 8ft by 4ft boards whilst standing on the edge of a drop with just two 3″ wide bits of wood (the rafters of the flat roof) to stand on!! Wish I had found the camera for that!
Since they don’t use scaffolding they can keep their prices low. The whole job (4 flat roofs) cost £2,100 including VAT. We had a quote higher than this from one roofer just for two of the flat roofs (the bathroom roof and the back dormer roof and he’d use scaffolding).
Anyway, so thet stripped all the old material off and added new OSB boarding, add a new PVC fascia above the front window as the wood one was rotten. This included one of the roofers driving to Boston to pickup the fascia (he was gone well over an hour). I asked for a price on this, but wasn’t given one so looks like it was added for free, I like free stuff so thank you 
Next day they stripped the back dormer window flat roof and fitted new OSB boards and their fibre glass system. By the end of the second day the roofs were water tight, though needed a small amount of fibre glassing by hand and the decorative coating applied which was completed on the next day.
We have leaks in the corners of the dormer windows (three leaks in total) that seem to be associated with poor fitting flashing and possibly the dormer sides. I discussed the possibility of doing something with the sides and one of the roofers suggested adding a fibreglass sheet over them, this would waterproof the dormers, though probably not fix the flashing.
So I contacted Rooftec for a quote on this and one of the owners came out and after a lot of humming and arring said it would need a cherry picker to do the sides. The quote for this (four sides of the dormers and a little flat bit over the bathroom extension) was over £1,000 (much more than I expected) so left that for another time.
They cleared up most of the mess, including some left by the previous Rooftec roofers who left all sorts of stuff (lumps of old set resin, wood from the roof etc…). So in the end I was happy with the job.
Oh, they broke a few tiles on the roof, so replaced those for us and left an extra pack of roof tiles they didn’t use. So that was nice of them.
Few issues.
Neighbors told us when we wasn’t on site (we turned up a couple of hours later than them a couple of times) they had their music quite loud, when we arrived they turned it down . Not a big issue (loud music doesn’t bother us), but if it’s something you think might bother your neighbors/you make a note of it.
Neighbors told us they were less careful when we wasn’t at the house, dropping old boards 4 storeys down quite near some parked cars which is something I wouldn’t want done near my car! I told them they could throw things down the front of the house (out the dormer windows) since as long as it wasn’t a windy day stuff drops straight onto the front garden (that’s how I remove rubble from the top floor ) as long as you are careful it’s safe.
They left quite a lot of nails on the side road (it’s a dirt road) which could have caused car tires to puncture. One of our Neighbors had been picking up nails after them, he picked up well over a dozen while I was there!! This is something they should have done as a matter of course.
Interestingly his daughter is having some flat roofs done and Rooftec is on standby and they want to read this blog before making a final decison.
When they discovered this blog, specifically this post – Flat Roofing by Rooftec (which was after they messed up the dormer roofs) I think they realized they’d have to make a significant effort to pull things around. I told them I’m blogging about the renovation and will be posting accurate and unbiased information here (which is what I’ve tried to do).
I’m an Search Engine Optimisation Consultant and own SEO Gold so websites and search engine rankings is my thing. This blog will most likely be top 10 for relevant search phrases (like Rooftec) in Google etc… in a few months time so it should be important to Rooftec not to mess things up with me (I think they realised this).
This blog has comments enabled, so if Rooftec would like to make a comment or two direct to the site they can at anytime. Same is true for anyone else, if you’ve used or plan to use Rooftec feel free to comment.
I suppose the biggest question for anyone thinking of using Rooftec is would we use Rooftec again?
We’ve met six Rooftec employees, including one of the owners (there’s two owners apparently) and they are friendly people who I found easy to get along with. Now that I’ve dealt with them I think I’d get a good job done each time (after this house we plan to buy houses for buy to let, so may use them again if we are ever stupid enough to buy something with a flat roof ), they aren’t perfect and have clearly taken advantage of us not being at the house all the time, but their prices are very hard to beat and their fibreglass system is better than felt (lasts longer) so if you are thinking of using Rooftec my advice is stay on site and keep an eye on them because they are capable of doing a good job.
I’m very happy with the end result, just a shame it had to be done the hard way.
I suppose I better send them a cheque for the work on Monday then )
First post in the series: Flat Roofing by Rooftec (Glass Fiber Flat Roof)
Tags: Roofing
5 responses to Flat Roofs Finally Finished
I wonder what the cost (both financially and emotionally) would have been if one of these gentlemen had fallen off the roof and died in the front garden.
Our roofing company is glad to follow the Workplace safety regulations and even though scaffolding and other fall protection is expensive, I am sure our customers would prefer to pay it than to have have blood on their hands.
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I totally agree with Fred about the health and safety.
This bit you wrote shocked me!! (below)
Since they don’t use scaffolding they can keep their prices low. The whole job (4 flat roofs) cost £2,100 including VAT. We had a quote higher than this from one roofer just for two of the flat roofs (the bathroom roof and the back dormer roof and he’d use scaffolding).
Are you happy with a firm that makes their employees put their lifes at risk day in day out just so you can save yourself a few pounds???
It is people like you that breed the cowboy element in roofing and building by giving contracts to bogus firms like Rooftec who flaunt health and safety in the work place.
My company is NFRC registered and have to work to a code of practice. We do not want to be the cheapest as I have worked hard for over 20years gaining invaluble skills that I think deserve a decent rate of pay for.
And by the way……..
A £1000.00 was a very fair price to have four dormer cheeks replaced and the other small flat roof,………….maybe it was the cost of the cherry picker that put you off !!:)
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If one of those workers ( you can’t call them roofers because no real roofing company would risk the lives of its emploees) had fallen you may have lost your house in the ensuing court case.
Not such a cheap job then.
We are members of the C.R.C and ensure that all our roofers are as safe as possible at all times.
If that was my home i would have gone with scaffold guy everytime, even if it was £1000.00 more.
Anyway you can breathe a sigh of relief THIS TIME. but remember cheapest may not be the best.
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Let me make this clear since commenter’s have clearly misunderstood what went on.
I got various quotes and the general theme was bitumen roofing = expensive, only one of the quotes mentioned scaffolding, but I assumed all the companies would use scaffolding for the top roofing.
On the lower roof there was no need for scaffolding, so doubt any roofer would use it, but 4 stories up I expected to see scaffolding (hence my shock when I saw them stood so high with no form of protection).
I got one quote from a company using a fibreglass system (Rooftec) and that was the lowest quote with the longest guarantee. I didn’t realistically expect it to last 50yrs, but could see the potential of a fibreglass roofing system lasting a lot longer than a felt roof, while a bitumen roof needs replacing every 10-15 years.
I thought (wrongly) that RoofTecs much lower quote was mainly due to the material used, with bitumen there’s all that melting etc… and so a much harder job than painting on fibreglass resin etc… and I’d heard there was a big cost for some kind of expensive license.
Their first failed attempt at the top roofs when they over boarded directly over the old rotten/wet roof I wasn’t on site which is why they thought they could get away with it. I never even thought about whether they used scaffolding on the first try, had they not had to come back a second time I’d have believed they’d used scaffolding (why wouldn’t I?).
On the second try I got there after they’d removed over half the roofing material, I think I’ve mentioned somewhere else a neighbour telling me about them turning music up loud while I’m not there and lower when we turned up, also they took little care when removing the old roofing material while I wasn’t there, throwing down within yards of parked cars, while I was there they carried a lot of material down the stairs. Note: I had no problem with them using the front garden for throwing material down, I’ve done this myself and as long as your careful it’s safe.
So when I turned up there was no scaffolding erected and half the roofs removed. I was surprised they used no protection (a harness as a minimum for example), but I’m no expert on fitting roofs and had no idea what the law was regarding this until much later.
So please don’t post with the belief I knew in advance how this company worked, had I known they were cowboys roofers I’d have not touched them with a barge pole. With regards the scaffolding issue like I said-
“I’ll add I did work out why their prices are so reasonable, they are mad!!
Imagine 4 storey high ripping off 8ft by 4ft boards whilst standing on the edge of a drop with just two 3? wide bits of wood (the rafters of the flat roof) to stand on!! Wish I had found the camera for that!
Since they don’t use scaffolding they can keep their prices low.”
Why would I say I’ve worked out how they keep their prices low if I already knew they didn’t use scaffolding? It was news to me.
I would not use Rooftec again, not because they don’t use scaffolding but because the end job wasn’t very good (multiple leaks). I worry about the roofs and expect they will need replacing in under 15 years, probably a lot sooner
David
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David,
The whole point of your blog is your day by day account of what happens
when you have a new roof fitted.
The people who have contributed to the blog are not having ago at you, They are
just pointing out the pitfalls that you could of encounted should anything have gone wrong.
Should you require roofing work or any other work for that matter in the future ask
the company to supply you with a “Method statement” on how the works are to be carried out.
All good traders will be happy to supply one, That way you would at least have some come back if things went wrong and they had deviated from their statement.
For instance they would have had to inform you if scaffolding was to be used and how they intended to lower the 8×4 sheets from the 4th story.
regards
Alan
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