Sep 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
It’s funny, because when the majority of people go and view a house, they tend to look at the front, mainly because we’re constantly being told that it’s all about ‘curb appeal’. Next, we tend to check out the inside room by room, which is followed up by a quick look around outside, just so we imagine ourselves sitting there in the sunshine (when it arrives).
This is a fairly standard, tried and tested routine that formulates an opinion of whether we buy and live in that property or whether we continue the journey of looking for something else. However, here at Roofspec SW, we believe that people don’t look up enough when viewing a house, not to the sky above, but to the roof of the property that they’re about to potentially buy.
Even to an untrained eye, you can tell a lot by the state of a roof. For starters you can tell what the current owner’s attitude is towards property maintenance. If they’re happy leaving missing slates and slipped guttering, then the chances are there’s other things on the house that they can’t be bothered to get fixed. It’s about a state of mind and that in turn can impact the property.
Next up, a roof will tell everything you need to know about the age of the property, especially when it comes to the use of traditional slates or more modern tiles. Lastly, a roof will tell whether or not you should expect a major bill for your property just after you purchase it. The signs are often there both inside and out.
Inside, look for brownish, patchy marks on ceilings and on the top sections of walls, both of which suggest signs of water ingress, possibly from a damaged and leaking roof. Don’t forget, it’s always worth taking a look inside a loft space, maybe not on the first viewing, but definitely at some point before you buy. As well as being handy storage areas, loft spaces are the perfect place to check out the underside of the roof, giving you a better idea of the condition of felt, battens, trusses and slates.
Outside, look for signs of a sagging roof, missing slates and chimney damage, all of which are strong indicators of issues.
But here’s the point, although a house survey required by a lender, will tell you about the roof, looking yourself will highlight issues earlier in the buying process, it can help you negotiate a lower price and it will remove the element of surprise when a bill for a new roof arrives just after you buy it.
Bear in mind that at Roofspec SW we cover Plymouth and the wider South-West region including Devon and Cornwall and our team has years of experience in dealing with roofing issues. In fact, there’s very little on a roof that will surprise us here at Roofspec SW.
If you would like to talk to us about any roofing work in Plymouth and the wider South-West region, then please get in contact with us via this website or give us a call on 01752 914217 and remember, as we say at Roofspec SW… ‘the proof is in the roof’.
May 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
It might sound odd, but here at Roofspec SW we believe that guttering is one of the most important and fundamental parts of any property design and build. In simple terms, having a guttering system that is clean and functioning properly can make a major difference when it comes to property maintenance.
We seem to end up asking customers the same question all the time. ‘Would you rather spend a few hundred pound on fixing the gutters, or a few thousand pound on fixing the house?’ It sounds dramatic, but that’s the truth and here’s why.
Imagine a fairly average property in Plymouth with standard half round guttering, the sort you see just under the roofline of the house. It looks fairly innocent enough, but when that guttering fills with leaves, moss and general muck that washed down off the roof itself, well then you have a potential blockage and that’s when you have a problem.
Guttering systems have been around for years, in fact it’s generally regarded that the ancient Romans used basic guttering systems on the roads they built. They had a peak in the centre of the road and a trough on the two sides that enabled water to run off and protect the road from water damage. The exact same thing can be said for modern guttering on roof, even though the design concept hasn’t actually moved on that much in well over two thousand years.
Having a gutter that leaks or even a downpipe that’s not connected properly will eventually cause damage, you only have to look at where there’s an unaligned piece of pipe and you’ll probably see early signs of water damage on the wall. Further investigation may even unearth damp sections on the correlating inside wall. That sort of damage is expensive to fix and will end up costing a whole lot more than a simple downpipe fix.
So, here’s the thing, at Roofspec SW, we’d much further fix your guttering and get the whole system working well rather than coming along a year later and having to recommend a builder that can come in and re-render outside sections of your property and deal with any damp issues at the same time. One of those options is a lot less expensive than the other, we’ll leave it to you to work out.
Bear in mind that we cover Plymouth and the wider South-West region including Devon and Cornwall and our team has years of experience in dealing with roofing issues. In fact, there’s very little on a roof that can surprise us here at Roofspec SW.
If you would like to talk to us about any roofing work or guttering in Plymouth and the wider South-West region, then please get in contact with us via this website or give us a call on 01752 914217 and remember, as we say at Roofspec SW… ‘the proof is in the roof’.
All the best.
Apr 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
Choosing a builder to handle an extension project is fairly simple. You draw up a shortlist, you to talk to a few people and in some instances, you can even go round and see what they’ve done before.
But choosing the right roofing contractor can be a whole lot more complicated and the reason for that is because you can hardly get up on someone’s roof and check out the quality of work and even if you could, would you know what you’re looking for?
Here at Roofspec SW, it’s natural for us to think that we’re the right fit for any roofing job in Plymouth or the surrounding area, but to help you make a more informed decision here’s our top tips on what to look out for before finally deciding who to go with.
Let’s start with reputation. One of the best ways in which you can find out more about a roofing contractor is to talk to people that know. That might be people who’ve had recent work done or even other trade businesses. Builders you already know will often know a good roofing company and will usually be more than happy to make a recommendation.
Here at Roofspec SW we’re proud of our reputation with existing trade businesses and having worked alongside plenty over the years we feel content that they would recommend us. Equally, we know that previous clients would speak highly of us simply because we’ve never let our customers down.
Next up we have budget. Whenever you work with a roofing contactor, talk to them up front about the budget. They’re best placed to tell customers what’s needed and what it will cost and once the budget is set, it’s important that everyone sticks to that. At Roofspec SW, we not only pride ourselves on getting our quoting right, but just as importantly we stick to those quotes which enables our clients to budget accurately and effectively.
The third element is communication. If you consider that most roofing work is up on top of a building and out of the way, it’s important that there’s a level of communication and trust between contractor and customer. At Roofspec SW, we have a secret weapon in our drone service. This allows us to show customers first hand what’s needed, how we’re progressing and when the job is finished, all without having to set foot on a single scaffold board. This creates a reassurance about the work we do and a level of accountability that other roofers simply can’t offer.
Last up we have relationships. The questions to ask yourself are, how do you feel about this company, do you trust them and are they decent people. If you consider that taking off a complete roof and replacing is a major project and the implication of getting it wrong can be significant. This is why we go to great lengths to meet clients before we start any job, we talk to them, discuss budget and build a relationship … it’s the only sensible starting point for any roofing work.
We cover Plymouth and the wider South-West region including Devon and Cornwall and our team has years of experience in dealing with roofing issues. In fact, there’s very little on a roof that can surprise us here at Roofspec SW.
If you would like to talk to us about any roofing work in Plymouth and the wider South-West region, then please get in contact with us via this website or give us a call on 01752 914217 and remember, as we say at Roofspec SW… ‘the proof is in the roof’.
Apr 2, 2024 | Uncategorized
Here at Roofspec SW we get asked a lot if it’s possible to fix part of a roof rather than the whole thing and most of the time that’s a question driven by cost.
But in a way it’s wrong to base it on budget alone, the starting point should always be whether or not it needs repairing or replacing … you should pay for what needs to be done and no more than that.
Roof structures tend to age and wear at different rates. Prevailing winds, weather, proximity to other buildings and even specific damage, all play a part in why certain sections of roof need replacing before other do. The point is, if a section of roof has plenty of life left in it, then we wouldn’t suggest replacing it, there’s little point.
What we do at Roofspec SW in that instance, is to make sure that whatever section we do replace, matches as best we can, the original slates or tiles that are already there. What’s more, this can always be neatly done by working along ridges and guttering sections where we have natural breaks in the pattern, creating an almost seamless finish. Over time they all wear in and you probably won’t be able to tell the difference. We might.
The key to this is knowing what to look for and it’s only experienced roofing contractors like us at Roofspec SW that can do that effectively. It also helped that our experience is matched by a bit of modern technology … our aerial drone.
Our fully licensed and insured drone inspection service can help us identify exactly where the issues are and once we have that information, it can make the difference between replacing a full roof and only part of it. In fact, anyone that instantly says ‘replace the full roof’ without having a proper look, probably rode up to your house on a horse, wearing a Stetson hat and cowboy boots.
But if we are discussing budget, it’s important to bear in mind that on some projects it might be easier to balance the books by having just half of a roof done this year and half next. The only word of warning is that additional costs on things like two sets of scaffolding may make it less cost effective than you think. The trick is knowing which half to start with and that’s where we can help at Roofspec SW.
We cover Plymouth and the wider South-West region including Devon and Cornwall and our team has years of experience in dealing with roofing issues. In fact, there’s very little on a roof that can surprise us here at Roofspec SW.
If you would like to talk to us about any roofing work in Plymouth and the wider South-West region, then please get in contact with us via this website or give us a call on 01752 914217 and remember, as we say at Roofspec SW… ‘the proof is in the roof’.
All the best.
Jan 24, 2024 | Uncategorized
Seeing as this is the first blog of the new year, we thought we’d take the opportunity to wish you all the very best for what we hope is going to be an incredibly positive 2024.
But being positive is often as much to do with being prepared and capable of dealing with anything that’s thrown at you. In the case of roofing work, there’s always one thing that tends to crop up around this time of year and that’s stormy weather.
Before we go anywhere near the slightly warmer, months of spring we still have a few colder, possibly windier months to get through and we’ve already seen a handful of decent strength storms in recent months. Just after Christmas, Storm Gerrit (not sure where they get these names from) created major disruption across large parts of the north and although it largely left us alone down here in Plymouth is does highlight the fact that we’re still vulnerable to storm weather and the damage it can create.
The best way of dealing with stormy weather and to properly protect your property is to make sure that your roof is currently in the best possible order that it can be and ready to handle anything that’s thrown at it. Bear in mind loose or missing slates will always compromise the strength of your roof. Every residential roof is designed in such a way that that the parts work together to create genuine strength and missing parts will always create weakness, a bit like a chain being as strong as its weakest link.
Here at Roofspec SW we’re specialists in identifying roofing issues and coming up with solutions that work well and remove problems. We operate a fully licensed and insured drone service that enables us to clearly see any roofing problems without leaving the ground and when work is required, our Roofspec SW team can be up there fixing it way before any bad weather hits again.
We cover Plymouth and the wider South-West region including Devon and Cornwall and our team has years of experience in dealing with roofing issues. In fact, there’s very little on a roof that can surprise us here at Roofspec SW.
If you would like to talk to us about any roofing work in Plymouth and the wider South-West region, then please get in contact with us via this website or give us a call on 01752 914217 and remember, as we say at Roofspec SW… ‘the proof is in the roof’.
All the best for 2024.
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