I have a flat roof that will need refelting in a year or two. This time, we’re going pitched…. I think.

Where do I start? I don’t want a roofing company to do the lot as they’ll charge loads. I can organise stuff and have a tame brickie in the family for the new gable.

Do I need an architect? Or an architectural technician? It’s just a roof on a very long single garage (there’s a small gym extension on one end). Building regs? Planning?

Where to start?

Pulls up chair. In the same boat. Nothing helpful to add, sorry.

Looked at it briefly last year but gave up when a builder mentioned we would need to have a gander at the foundation to check depth/possibility of underpinning. Ours is a two storey extension so bit more load on the existing foundations.

Have you considered not felting and going with Firestone or the likes?. Some of these products claim to have a 50 year life expectancy.

Right in saying you might want to look at foundations, quite a considerable increase in weight from a flat roof to a tiled pitch roof.
Any idea what sort of tiles you would go for?

But essentially you’ll need a carpenter to cut and pitch the main roof structure, brickie to build up the gable end, or you could have the carpenter carry on and build the gables in timber and then ply, eml mesh and then render it.
Depends on the finish your after.

What area are you in?
Would be worth getting in contact with your local planning office, they would tell you if you need planning permission. But at a guess I would say you probably would as your changing the outside silhouette of the building.

I’m in Cambs. I’ll give them a bell but I suspect their default response is ‘planning permission needed’.

Flat roofs can be okay for 20 years if properly done. I suspect that you could be into all sorts of loading and wind strength type considerations, not to mention the possibility of planning permission, drawings etc
Unless it’s a burning desire just update

We’re just doing this to our garage and have had to get planning permission. As its only a single skin wall we’re also having to put a windpost bolted to the foundations, then bolted to the ridge of the new roof to give it all structural stability. We’re also being made to clad the underneath of the roof joists with 18mm ply to again, give it more stability. Its all totally over the top. We want a couple of velux’s in it but have had a quote for £8000 just for doing the roof.
I was……a bit surprised.

Planning required if it doesn’t fall within permitted planning. Have a look at the planning portal website for more info. If you can use a ruler and a scale rule I’d do this myself if I was you- it dosent need to be anything fancy.

Building Regs will be required but I’d do this via a ‘building notice’ rather than submit plans.

If you’d rather have someone else sort all that you could either use an architectural technician or a builder who can get them drawn up.

For the roof you can either use pre-fabricated trusses to form the pitch or have a carpenter construct a ‘cut roof’. The cheapest may depend on the size of garage you have. The roof will have to be strapped down to the existing structure and lead flashings installed at any abutments, but any decent builder will do this.

For such a simple job I wouldn’t expect the builders would need any drawings to work from unless you have any specific requirements, but by the sounds of it you don’t. Just make sure you have at least three quotes and that the work includes everything.

Choppersquad has it up there. As soon as the Planning Dept get involved, it goes from a minor bit of roofing to building the effing Shard… :-/

I’ll have a nose around the area for ideas as this is quite a common alteration to this type of house. There’s also a couple of builders mid build close by (extension stuff) so I’ll get them to price it.

Thanks for your help.