Home owner told it would cost £7500 to repair rotten roof by company offering government £2000 insulation grant
Fortunately for the customer, they contacted us to provide a second opinion before they parted company with £5500 of there hard earned cash
Our customer had been contacted by a Company offering loft insulation as for free as part of a £2000 Government grant scheme.
The Surveyor turned up and During the Survey, after inspection of the roof space he told our customer that the roof timbers were in a poor state, and suffering from lots of mould. Also the rafters and other timbers would need replacing as well as the insulation. Surprisingly the company the surveyor worked for could carry out the work but there would be an additional cost of £5500 to pay.
We were asked to have a look to give a second opinion. As you can see from the pictures- the mould and rot the surveyor was talking about was simply white spot mould caused by intermittent condensation. This is a surface mould causing no structural degradation of the timbers. It is very common in the UK.
The moisture reading of 17% as shown in the picture is around what we would expect in a cold roof space in December. we would even expect to see slightly more elevated readings depending on conditions.
The Cause and Solution
There were a number of causes of the condensation issue.
- A builder had moved the loft insulation to provide boarding to the loft space for storage.
- They had also fitted a laddered accessible loft hatch without a seal around it .
- The loft was fitted with a Positive input ventilation system that was turned of
- The new on suite fan had no over run timer.
The Solution
- Re instate the insulation to help prevent condensation and mould to the underside of the ceiling in the living area
- Add a seal to the loft hatch to help prevent vapour from the living space rapidly entering the roof void
- Turn on the Positive Intake Ventilation (PIV) system- this will remove air from the roof space in to the living space pushing the water vapour out through the background ventilation(trickle vents on the windows etc), as well as bringing fresh dryer air in to the roof space to prevent excess vapour
- switch the over run timer on the fan to 10 minutes to help clear the water vapour produced from bathing. - the PIV will take care of any remaing water vapour.
Total Saving
- Government saving (Our Money) £2000
- Customer Saving £5,500 less the minimal cost of a family member to redistribute the insulation
- the cost of this internal roof survey. £200 (prices vary dependent on location and property type)
Was it worth paying for our survey as a second opinion, of course it was.
We have no affiliation to any government schemes or contractors so provide a truly independent fact based Survey.
The customer now has the piece of mind that the roof is sound and requires nothing other than regular maintanence.