Flat Roofs

[Ahleckz]

A house has come up for sale which looks good but it has a flat roof.

The Home Report is very inconclusive, only suggests that “The roof is in entirely flat and clad with mineral felt or similar. No inspection of the roof covering is achievable from ground level. The vendor advises that the roof covering was renewed prior to purchase of the property in circa 2015.”

When house hunting my girlfriend has been obsessed with roofs and is convinced a lot need replacing. I have never lived in a house and had to replace the roof, whereas her parents have replaced two...
She’s therefore very nervous about a flat roof.

has anyone experience with them?

Assuming it needs replaced, how much roughly would this be?

Would it be worth budgeting to put a sloped roof in (however it’s mid terrace so doubt this is a goer!).

I’ve read some websites which suggest it’s around £3k to replace the roof, and if that was every 10 years then that’s no problem but does seem cheap to me.

but she’s concerned it’ll constantly leak and be cold due to lack of insulation.

So, any thoughts?

 

[Ahleckz]

Depends what you want to replace it with and how big it is...without that info nobody can answer.

Aye, as soon as I posted I realised the size would help.

Roughy 47sqm. No idea what I want to replace it with, just be interesting to see some ideas.

 

[Ahleckz]

Thanks guys, sounds reassuring. I’ve booked a viewing for Friday. I’ll ask the sellers but don’t expect they’ll have much to say beyond “never caused us any issues”.

Ultimately I’ve been looking at older properties and always anticipated roof work will be a necessity at some point. Some houses I’ve bid on are 100 years old with original roofs.

it doesn’t sound like flat roofs are too problematic, just need to be budgeted for and keep up to date with maintenance.

I’m glad it’s not going to be £10k every five years!
Gives me a good excuse to buy a drone I guess!

 

[Ahleckz]

Thanks @Derek W , I've sent you a trust. Please don't out bid me!

I think I got my calculations wrong (I was in bed on my phone, so I'll blame that). It's approximately 7.5m long by 5.2m wide. Giving an area of 39sqm.

 

[Ahleckz]

You had to like one of the 'weird' houses in Glasgow didn't you!

I had a look at the schedule and the first thing I did was look on Google Aerial maps followed by the Birdseye on bing so I could get a better idea of the roof. My concern would be, without seeing it under closer inspection, that as the flat roof is over the main roof and not an extension and that it also appears to be flush with the houses either side in the terrace if you plan to do any repairs to the roof over your part the contractor could affect your neighbours house as well. This obviously means the potential for shelling out more than you need to. By all means if you can get a tour, take it, however if it's only virtual just now you won't get the advantage of smelling fresh paint if it's had to be touched up on the off chance that the roof has leaked recently. I would certainly be aware of the property but if you're serious a full survey for the flat roof alone would either put you off or put your mind at rest of you do want to purchase it.

Haha, I'm looking forward to standing behind my battlements surveying my land!

I'm really not sure how much I'll be able to tell from a visit, but got it booked so that's a good thing. No idea if there's even access to the roof?

The aerial view is interesting, looks almost like solar panels on the top of one of them? Hard to tell!

 

[Ahleckz]

Aye, viewed it. It’s difficult to know if it’s knackered or not as you can’t actually get to it to view.

However looking at the flashing (is that the right word?) and no obvious signs of concern. Inside looked ok, again no recent paint, no mould, no plaster cracking.

I think it’s ok. Just need to budget for it, and it seems that any remedial work is pretty easily DIYable.

Her dad did suggest it would be great to have a roof terrace but I think his tongue was firmly in his cheek but does make me wonder if you could use it for that haha.

Couldn’t see the others roof to confirm if solar panels were up there but assume not. The seller did say they had the roof checked five years ago when they bought it and some bitumen was redone then.

Just going to mull it over before deciding what we fancy doing next but not overly concerned with the roof.

Are you in the roofing game @Derek W ?

 

[Ahleckz]

Aye, it’ll be fun to have a beer up there just to see the view but I’ll keep the hospitality in the garden!

I suspect we will put a bid in, but the way things are it’s impossible to know what you actually need to bid!

Annoying we want a ‘character’ house. Half tempted to move to an estate! Drawn any nice ones recently?

 

[Ahleckz]

Yeah house prices are daft at the moment in the sense that houses go pretty quickly in certain price bands. Do you know how long the property has been listed for? Or the price of similar properties in the area? Might give you an idea on what to bid. Worst case scenario is that could up your bid depending on what you first offer and how the seller reacts.

They are all going to closing date, very quickly. we bid on a few around six months ago and they were going for 20-25% over home report and closing with 20+ offers within a week. Can only offer what we think is reasonable and see what happens. Refuse to massively overpay.