Roof leak - how unreasonable?

[KeyboardMash]

I hate getting work done on the house. I fucking hate it. Trying to work out who's reliable and who's a cowboy, making twenty calls to get one or two people to look at the issue, having people in the house fixing stuff, the expense. Hate it.

We have a leak in the roof. It's only appeared in these last few days of torrential rain - not bucketing through or affecting any electrics, but there's a sizable wet patch on the ceiling that appeared on about day three of the deluge here. My heart sank - and I ignored it for two days while at work. I could have called, but it's slightly tricky at work. I called about six people today. Two said they're too busy, one's on holiday and said to call in a week, and I'm waiting on responses from three others.

DH is giving me shit for not sorting it sooner. He's done fuck all, if course, because his job is Too Important to be making calls to roofers - but he's adamant I should have got onto it immediately. I probably should have. I am sure there are lots of very efficient people out there who would have been on the phone the second they noticed it and not stopped till they had someone booked in to take a look. I'm just wondering about proportions! Is it 90% of people would have had a quote by now and I'm a pathetic little flower for ignoring it a couple of days before doing my pathetic best? Or are there a significant number of us out there living with slight leaks and just trying here and there to get ahold of someone but accepting it's probably going to take a few days?

Just trying to get a feeling for who is unreasonable and by how much!

I'm glad it's not just me who finds it an ordeal!! To clarify, it's not dripping or anything. There's a visible damp path, bit longer but a bit narrower than an A4 piece of paper. It appeared after three days of rain, and is visibly drier after one slightly drizzly (but not pouring) day. I think it's seeping through a bit of the eaves I can't get to, so can't do a lot to mitigate!

Getting tradespeople out..honest ones..is a nightmare. Leaky roof here,water dripping through ceiling in ds room. I put a bucket under it because we had a family bereavement at the time,so bigger things going on. Then the joys of ringing round and using check a trade for first a roofer,then a plasterer and a decorator. The number of fucking chancers who didnt turn up at all,turned up late,gave ridiculously inflated quotes and generally fucked me about just pissed me off.
Its all trades. The skip i ordered for today was promised by 10am. 4 phone calls it took and it finally arrived after 2,by which time man who was going to help load the waste into it had got bored and gone home. So stressful.

Phoning two days ago would have made barely any difference so I think your dh is being unreasonable.

I would try MyBuilder - you post the job and people show interest. You can read their reviews and shortlist ones you like the look of. Then you speak on the phone and arrange a time for a quote. I have occasionally had someone not the best show up, but generally everyone has been really excellent. If someone has been on the site a while and has all good reviews, chances are they are decent. Good luck! Btw it took me about two years to sort a leak that left water pouring down the walls in wet and windy weather. It took the roofers 5 minutes to fix!!!

Your home insurance company should have a list of people that you can contact

@KeyboardMash I take it you have sent your hubby up to the attic to at least see where the rainis coming in and mark it with some paint???? men are more pathetic than women at getting anything done in the house! my hubby doesnt even realise that the guy I get to come and see the boiler is also the guy who will change the taps!!

Have you looked in the loft to se where the water is getting in? It may be simple to fix. And if you know you can at least tell the people you ring what the problem is.

We're that type of people too! We've had a few leaks over the years we've left for months and months before finally getting round to it. Hate everything about organising any kind of tradespeople!

I found my excellent roofer via the plumber who replaced our boiler (and him I found as the most-recommended chap on our community group on Facebook).

I never recommend our roofer to anyone else so that he's not too busy. Which, you know, he is anyway.

On to your question: I would have called someone right away, because I am a stressy mess about these things. But given that it would take the roofer about a week or two to come out to fix the kind of leak you're talking about, in your shoes I wouldn't feel at all guilty about leaving it as you have done. (And your H is being a dick.)

Live in a 300 year old house which always leaked, took 26 years to get it mostly sorted so think I win! 😜

Meh. We have wet patches coming down bedroom walls. Been like it for about 5 years.

I keep meaning to get the gutters checked and cleared, but then forget again......I want the loft cleared, boarded and a proper loft hatch and ladder fitted, so maybe next summer I'll get the whole lot done in one hit

We’ve got a leaky roof too! We had an estimator for the company out a week after calling…a quote a week after that…and it’s now booked in for late November. Thats about as quick as I could hope for! I can’t just ignore it. The more damage it does the more interior repair I need to do. And I hate DIY.

🏆

Just to add. The website 'MyBuilder' is very good.

You post the job and they contact you if they are interested. You don't get many messing you around as they have to pay to express an interest in the job

we found a leaking roof in our old house a few months after moving in. We used buckets for 5 years and eventually had a new roof.

we did have one patch fixed by a guy who went up and poured a load of silicon up there as a cheap temporary fix which solved that leak.

Urgh I find it really stressful booking jobs too, I think I'm too polite and worried about upsetting tradespeople so leave it ages before chasing if they haven't got back to me. I hate getting multiple people round to give quotes. We have some great tradespeople who are reliable but a roofer isn't someone you'd be using regularly so is a bit different to a plumber. We've had a couple of roof issues fixed and they couldn't do anything while it was still raining so that would have delayed it a bit anyway...

Our porch has leaked every time it rains heavily with the wind in a particular direction. We noticed it the week after we moved in. It can cause quite the sizeable puddle in there.

We’ve been here 10.5 years now and as it started raining this week I said to DH, ‘we really should have got that fixed over the summer when it was a bit dryer’ 😳

I have an intermittent leak that's been there since I moved in 8 years ago.

Hi, hope you are all well.
I’ve seen the posts and my husband is a roofer, if anyone needs help I can send you his contact details and company details so you can speak with him directly. Hope that helps

Check a trade people aren't coming to you. A lot ignore it anyway and just because they agree to quote (if they do) doesn't mean they're available anytime soon.

I'd avoid Facebook as it's always just relatives of the people being recommended.

For what it's worth, I'd have probably left it in the hope that it would somehow itself too.