Flat roof - yea or nay?

[Pale Rider]

Historically, houses in areas with a high rainfall were built with sharper pitches because they were thought to better able to resist water.

So if the house is in Ireland, and if the area has high rainfall, a flat roof seems a particularly bad idea.

I've had a better experience than @Profpointy with a structural survey.

The one I got was comprehensive and well written.

Such a survey might put your mind at ease, or it might make you walk away.

Which is fine, but the survey money is then 'lost', so it's not something to do very many times without proceeding.

 

[cougie uk]

Having saved a decent deposit and got mortgage approval a few months ago, I have been looking at houses (and flats). It's awkward as I can't do physical viewing due to the Covid restrictions but it seems people are buying houses without viewing them first

Friend of mine is selling her house. She's definitely having people viewing so I'm sure you would be able to ?

 

[Ridgeway]

The chances of having a poorly installed flat roof is higher than a poorly installed pitched roof. Nothing wrong with flat roofs if they are correctly installed, decent materials used etc it's just that there are more people having knowledge of pitched roof construction than that of flat roof versions.

Those people that refer to having endless problems with a flat roof are usually the ones that paid to have it cheaply repaired or installed...

 

[Dave7]

Flat roofs can be more difficult to sell for obvious reasons.
However, good materials and a good contractor will give you a problem free roof.

 

[Blue Hills]

I would avoid tyred.
Have the impression that they were used a lot post-war, particularly during the 60s - basically because they were cheaper to install - in materials and labour. Has anyone ever suggested any positive functional advantage of a flat roof over a pitched one?
Used a fair bit in some foreign parts of course, but places with less rain and more heat I think.
Not my impression of Ireland or much of the UK.

 

[vickster]

Friend of mine is selling her house. She's definitely having people viewing so I'm sure you would be able to ?

Maybe the rules are different in Ireland?

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Mixed experiences with flat roofs, our first house had a flat roof on the extension for the kitchen and bathroom, the sellers had to replace it before we brought it and we replaced it twice in the 15 years we were there. This house has a flat roof over the kitchen, we've been here 13 years now and haven't had to touch it yet.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Get a quote to change it from a flat roof to a tiled pitched roof, assuming that it's detached & not a semi, then use that as a bargaining tool. Again assuming it's the whole house & not just the garage we're talking about. If it's just the garage that has a flat roof, then factor in replacing it with galvanised sheets.

 

[T4tomo]

Flat roof - fine on a shed / garage as not a huge job to fix / replace, and not a disaster when it springs a leak. Not something I'd entertain on house...

 

[Drago]

My experience of so called surveys is the will never tell you it's OK but say things like "may cause trouble" "unable to check for <x>", so doubt you'd be any the wiser. One thought is that even if the roof is fine, when you come to sell, potential buyers will be being told not to touch it with a barge pole. It all comes down to price in the end - if a house with a proper roof is £100k more maybe it is worth the downside, if it's £10k more then it probably isn't

Regarding surveys: On my flat I had gems like "a random sample of windows were sticking" FFS there are only 5 windows in the flat - and it turned out none were sticking when I checked for myself. "crack in ceiling maybe be expensive to fix, unable to examine as I couldn't be arsed bringing my ladder" (it was peeling paint). And so on. My solicitor told me more about thr construction of my flat than the surveyor, and to my knowledge he'd never been in it - that said, I'm not wholly convinced the surveyor had either. £500 I paid for half a page of drivel. I was very cross to say the least, but had to suck it up as we needed it for the mortgage. Just went for a valuation when we bought the house we're in now.

Oh aye, you either want the simple valuation survey, or the top bollards with nobs on survey.

The standard middle survey is a waste of cash, being essentially a valuation survey but padded out with lots of excuses why they didn't check something in more detail, or recommendations to seek the advise of a specialist.

Going back to the OP, my flat felt garage roof is a P.O.S. and had failed soon after we moved in. We had 2 garages and I never really needed the second so left it to seripusly degrade, but now im redoing it in 0.7mm galv box section steel with a 5 decade guarantee. If its not a habitable space then its an ideal and relatively inexpensive, long lasting solution. It's also available in varipus powder coated colours if you think passing aircraft might dislike looking down on galv.

 

[tyred]

Friend of mine is selling her house. She's definitely having people viewing so I'm sure you would be able to ?

I'm in the Republic of Ireland and estate agents are not allowed to do in person viewings at the moment due to Covid. Early in January I had appointments made to view too different houses and both were cancelled by the (different) estate agents due to a new ruling brought in by the government at the time.

One of those houses has been taken of the market by the owner and one has since been sold.

There is a problem at the moment as people are not putting houses up for sale at the moment and the people desperate to buy are putting in offers without seeing the house in person and they tend to sell really quickly and prices are going up as a result. I just would not feel comfortable making offers on a house without having seen it first.

 

[tyred]

Historically, houses in areas with a high rainfall were built with sharper pitches because they were thought to better able to resist water.

So if the house is in Ireland, and if the area has high rainfall, a flat roof seems a particularly bad idea.

I've had a better experience than @Profpointy with a structural survey.

The one I got was comprehensive and well written.

Such a survey might put your mind at ease, or it might make you walk away.

Which is fine, but the survey money is then 'lost', so it's not something to do very many times without proceeding.

Yes my cousin is looking to buy a house and the bank had insisted on a survey and it did genuinely pick up on a major structural issue which would cost a fortune to repair. The survey was cheap compared to the alternative but it was still a good few hundred so you wouldn't want that happening too often as it would eat into the savings.

 

[tyred]

Flat roofs can be more difficult to sell for obvious reasons.
However, good materials and a good contractor will give you a problem free roof.

This is the thing. It's been on the market since at least November last year and all similar sized and priced houses in town have sold pretty quickly which probably tells it's own story.

It just might be possible to pick up a bargain as in other ways it seems a lovely house with large windows and a spacious bright interior, reasonable sized garden to the front, big concrete yard to the rear with tiny garage for a BMW Isetta driver but it does come with the potential for a lot of aggro and should I want to move, it could prove difficult to sell again.

 

[tyred]

I would avoid tyred.
Have the impression that they were used a lot post-war, particularly during the 60s - basically because they were cheaper to install - in materials and labour. Has anyone ever suggested any positive functional advantage of a flat roof over a pitched one?
Used a fair bit in some foreign parts of course, but places with less rain and more heat I think.
Not my impression of Ireland or much of the UK.

It's funny you should say that as ever since I first saw it, it has the appearance of some sort of prefabricated concrete structure with that look of being built out of Lego like seemed to be a common theme in the '60s.

It's part of three houses together in a sort of terrace, all with a flat roof.

 

[Hicky]

It wouldn't put me off, my last house has a flat roof I had redone in felt(cold roof construction) its lasted, if need be I'll redo myself with bitumen paint/pour to last a few years more. My current house has two flat roof's, one is the kitchen which has a 20yr guarantee and my loft extension done my a builder again with guarantee(GRP, ie easy to repair even by a novice diyer by watching youtube). These are warm construction.