Structural Engineer or Roofer?

[Goodwitch9]

Help me please!!! I've recently had an offer accepted on a lovely house. The survey says that some additional timbers will be required internally as the roof is a bit saggy and that I should get a chartered structural engineer to advise me. I'm confused as the two I've spoken to today both offered to provide a whole structural inspection report, rather than just looking at the roof issue. How is a structural inspection report different from the survey I've just had done? I know an excellent roofer, could I get him to advise me in the meantime as the engineers aren't available for a few weeks anyway?

Just get the roofer to have a look, sounds like it might need a bit of additional support/ bracing.

A roofer could put some timber in but a structural engineer would be able to decide exactly where the timber should go and how it should be fixed and how thick it needs to be.
You can also take action for costs against an engineer if their work is faulty.
A surveyor is always going to recommend the one that's legally watertight as that covers them and the mortgage company and you 100% but you're the one paying the bill, so as long as the mortgage company doesn't make it a condition of the mortgage (or your insurance company if it's not considered in a good state of repair) then you can decide what level of risk you are happy with.

In any case I wouldn't say a roofer would have expertise in this area unless it's a trivial situation where standard tables would cover it. But I'm sure you can find one that will have a go. Structural engineer is like using a cannon in an ant and a roofer might be the other way round!

Good luck!

The roofer will have to ask the engineer to do structural calculations for the roof trusses/bracings, as they will need to work out the weight of the roof and spacings to make sure they are not putting more weight on the structure of the house, which will cause further damage to the walls of the main house.

Do yourself a favour and get a full structural survey done on the house. It could save you thousands in the long run.

Did they give you a price for the full report ?

Some of the replies people give on here are completely ott.

im guessing its an older property with a traditional cut roof on it ,rafters/purlins ? Over the years some of these will sag a bit ( deflect ) due to age / size of the timbers. A roof can sag a bit when the tiles are first put on . Years ago there were no building regs / structural sizes to work to so local builders just really guesstimated the size they needed.

Ive been in some lofts and its really surprising how small some of the timbers are on older properties. But they have stood the test of time with with very few issuses.

Any experienced roofer,joiner,builder will be able to take a look and advise the right course of action thats needed ( if any ).

Im not sure the surveyor sounds like he’s an expert on matters with comments like “roofs a bit saggy “ 🤔

On the other hand if its a trussed roof design then it might be more of a problem.

Any pictures of said roof ?

I'm paraphrasing what he said!

This is a good explanation of a traditional roof