Water tank on roof?!

[SleepBecomesHim321]

Me again (I've posted a bazillion questions recently as we start to navigate if/how we can renovate our 60s house!).

We have a flat-roofed 3-storey 60s terraced townhouse. We have a large airing cupboard on the top floor which contains the hot water tank and the cold water tank is directly above it but.... is on the roof!

We want to convert the airing cupboard to a bathroom and install a new boiler system downstairs - that doesn't require tanks - but don't know what to do about roof tank. It's probably in exactly the spot we want to include a skylight in flat roof in new bathroom, so just disconnecting and leaving isn't an option.

When we've had other plumbing work done, plumbers have been stumped by the fact the tank's on the roof. I'm not even sure, physically, how it could be removed given that the roof is only accessible via ladder.

Has anyone got any sort of experience connected to this situation, or any advice?! Thanks in advance.

once it is disused and empty, the old tank can be cut up and the pieces lowered to the ground. You may need a roofer to patch the roof, but if you are planning a roof light, do it all as one job.

Depending on age, the tank might be plastic, fibreglass or galvanised steel. There is certain to be an insulated cover or cabin round it. Roofers will probably have done it before. They should have scaffolding built to work safely and get equipment up and down.

Disconnect, clear space , stand back, drop. Or am I missing somethg?

Thank you very much - this is helpful. So I think we should ring a roofing company or two for quotes.

We can't just drop it off roof as we don't have a large plot and it would be hard to contain the debris without risk. But if it's cut-uppable then that seems a good option. We'd planned to redo the flat roof anyway as we want to add a couple of skylights.

Do you think a builder would be able to advise about this (we're getting other work done) or would we be best off going direct/separately to a roofer? I don't know how much of a project manager role we can reasonably expect a builder to play in sub-contracting specific trades within a bigger job.

I expect a local builder will know a local roofer and add on his cut. But it will do no harm to ask around for recommendations of roofers. Flat roofs are different to pitched roofs, and different roofers usually specialise in one or the other.