My 70 year old Dad had his garage roof replaced by clowns.

Went to visit him today and noticed his garage ceiling soaked as well as puddles in the garage floor.

Thing is, he has stored a few electrical items and tools in there. Now they are wrecked!

The roofer won’t get back to him until Tuesday and won’t return his calls and I’m worried about the rain over the next 3 days.

Does he claim on his home insurance or off the builder?

Builder and his insurance.  Definitely not your dad or his insurance.

Can’t help with the legal stuff, If it was me I’d pop round with a tarp for the roof. Move anything that can be saved and speak to the insurance company.

It’s a consequencial loss, if the roofer has guaranteed the work then unless he has excluded it it will be his liability.

Good luck with that obvs.

It’s a consequencial loss

No it isn’t. It is a direct loss. Consequential loss would be something like the impact on your business which uses those tools following those tools being damaged by a moron fitting a roof badly.

Regardless of the type of loss. Get a tarp on it until it can get sorted..

It’s the “builders” **** up so his insurance pays. Get plenty of photos before he turns up. If it’s a flat roof the failure will be on the joints so you could even get up and check them Document everything.

consequential loss is very hard to show and to get compensation for in general. A claim under his insurance and get his insurers to go after the builder may be the easiest route

Thanks.

Cancelled my ride after putting a plastic sheet on the area after being woken by Dad at 5am needing my help due to rain water.

Builder is not returning his calls.

What a total **** up.

Going home to do my work now.

Told him to use the legal cover I bought for him for advice.

He didn’t even check if the company has good reviews or is an approved builder!

Your dad claims on his own insurance. This gets a really quick response as they will appoint somebody to come and prevent any further damage as a matter of urgency.

Your dad’s insurer will then recover costs from the builder and his insurer once everything is sorted.

The cost of putting right the defective work is another matter. But your dad’s insurer will be about to tell you if this is covered also.

Really **** winds me up does stuff like this. Its really not hard to do a job like that properly. Make sure you out the **** on social media if he doesn’t get back in touch, its blokes like that that give us all a bad name.

Right another call, my shoes and bikes stored in his garage are soaked.

Just bought more tarpaulin instead of his sheet.

He won’t call his insurer for some reason.

My fault for leaving my new stuff at his place. Hammering it down with rain now.

Your dad’s own insurance will probably cover storm damage. This weekends weather (unless dad’s in Tokyo?) is not a storm, so won’t be covered.

Poor workmanship by the builder, up to him and his insurers to sort it out. Your dad may have legal assistance cover on his household policy to help him pursue a claim against the builder.

Ok they are coming tomorrow.

Getting my ladder out. So much for my Sunday off!

Could be worse. Could be in Japan!

Who’s coming tomorrow. The builder?

Although you’re rightly pissed off with them, I’d not go laying into them about replacing all the knackered stuff until they’ve properly fixed the roof. If they take the hump they may well just eff off and stop any sort of co-operation. Do try and get a company address from them so you can make a formal money claim off them afterwards if they don’t cough up.

The builder said he would have look on Monday.

Whole house stinks of the chemical they were using.

Need a knife for cutting around the boiler flute.

Aghhh!

Temporary cover slowing down some rain.

Whole house stinks of chemical and making everyone wheeze and cough. Opened all the windows.

The water in the buckets looks gross and stinks.

Dad is sulking and won’t speak to me or contact his insurance.

Right better get on my work I guess finally.

I wonder if he will need a new roof as it was leaking across the roof/ceiling edges/middle and random spots.

Okay it’s a fibreglass roof.

Just wondering if it just needs another top coat.

I’ve done a few fibreglass roofs, initially as we couldn’t get a roofer in when needed, and have never had a problem with them, very hard to get it wrong really!
Ideally the top coat goes on the same day as the matting/resin but even on larger areas when we’ve only got the base coats on and it’s rained overnight it has still been completely watertight.
Is the garage freestanding or does it adjoin the main house?
Is there a faulty/ missing flashing.
Worst case, you can always key/clean with acetone and re do-the top coat if necessary.
Cheers, Paul.

Dad is sulking and won’t speak to me or contact his insurance.

May sound harsh but if he won’t do something that will help him (and he’s paid for) and won’t talk to the one person willing to help him – I’d walk away and leave him to deal with it.

Dad is sulking and won’t speak to me or contact his insurance.

On the other hand he could be feeling embarrassed or ashamed that his son has had to intervene. His self confidence may well be at an all time low from being physically unable to do anything so please cut him some slack.

Well done though on helping out.

Well they came and apparently did a top coat.

After a week though; the whole house stinks of chemical.

There is fibre glass strands all over the garage roof and driveway.

The garage ceiling is still damp but the water leak looks like it has stopped.

The ceiling has a new crack across the garage where it was leaking!

The whole stinks of chemical and as it’s attached/adjourned to the house, the fumes still come into the house!

My Dad has lost his sense of smell but my Mother had to go into hospital due to lung issues!

Yes I gave him some slack but want to slap him and the builder.

I’m staying home with them to help nurse Mun over half term but waiting for the builder to come back so I can get some answers.

Why do builders have so much trouble with flat roofs in the UK?

In North Queensland where we get monsoonal rains, flat roofs don’t leak.

The British public gets the building industry it deserves. Nearly every decision is price driven.

Sound awful. Given all the issues this has caused, (and I’d suggest your mum’s not going to get much better until she’s away from the fumes, can’t they stop at yours?) you should be getting proper advice from the CAB and maybe a lawyer. Reckon you need a proper installer to come and make a decent job then sue the original shisters.

Something doesn’t sound quite right to me. It’ll smell pretty potent while its going on but it should cure in under an hour then barely smell. Also I wouldn’t expect any fibreglass strands from a top coat. It usually just a gel coat or gel coat with a fine tissue.

Well yesterday it sprung another 2 different leaks on the opposite side and then the wall edge leaked and ran down the shelves.

Dad was kind enough to store my bike wheels and a classic 60’s classic radio along with carbon fibre tennis rackets… wet but covered in the orange gloop.

His neighbour complained about the chemical smell too. Smells damp and if acetate.

Guy is coming down to look on Saturday. I’ve told him if he can’t fix it, I’ll be reporting him to trading standards, my legal house legal cover and a case for a small claims court.

He said my Dad is too nice to do that. I agreed but you’re not dealing with my Dad anymore.

Dad and I use his garage for storage of bikes, electrical items and other things we won’t use till summer.

The guy is a middleman and outsourced the roofer. They did a great job on the driveway but now his garage ceiling had cracks.

Sick of it and the smell.

Good excuse to de-clutter.

The continuing “smell” would make me think something hasn’t cured properly and subsequently could be the root of all the problems. Hot some serious rain over the next 12/18 hours as well which wont be hopeful.

Popped on the roof again earlier to put out the tarpaulin plastic sheet. Was a pain in 40 mph winds!

Going through the garage to throw away stuff.

Rather be out riding but raining anyway… uh oh!

Well at least they fixed the first leak…

I just wonder what next…

If it’s a GRP roof, the smell is likely to be styrene, which is large component of polyester based GRP systems and once fully cured there should only be a minimal odour. Any strong smell after the normal curing period strongly suggests that the resin hasn’t been fully mixed and/or insufficient catalyst has been added during mixing resulting in some of the styrene remaining unreacted. The systen can appear to be cured when touched, paricularly if a topcoat/gelcoat has been applied over the reinforced resin layer. If this is the case then the bad news is that simply putting another layer over the top will only trap the unreacted styrene, when it gets warm, such as a sunny day, the styrene tends to migrate to the surface and the smell will return, it may also cause any subsequent layers/coats to delaminate. With GRP it’s important to remove any wicks (sticking up strands of fibreglass) before the top coat is applied and is usually done by sanding, if not done correctly the strands will draw water into the applied system. I’m afraid that the likely solution is to have the roof stripped and redone, talk to the insurers and trading standards. I am not a surveyor, but do work in the technical office of a liquid roofing manufacturer, not grp, and see this sort of thing far too often. Pm me, if you want to, images would be good to look at. Hope this helps.

my legal house legal cover

Why would your insurer want anything to do with this? Did you get your mum out of the way of the smell that is causing her health issues? As I said before, you need legal advice, probably from Citizens Advice Bureau and roofing advice from someone who knows WTF they are on about.

Well they are waiting for a dry period and replacing the roof again.

I don’t expect any different result though.