I am a bit doubtful about the idea of making holes in the membrane to deal with the condensation problem. The point of the membrane is to provide a second line of defence in case there is a small leak through the tiles or one slips. If you make a hole then any leak from anywhere above the hole in the same "channel" will run through the hole. I wonder wheter you could deal with this by dstripping out all the membtrane from below and then using one the foam systems to fill the space between the rafters and seal all the tiles in place. It would also give you better insulation. Not sure about the cost or warranty for this kind of work though.
What if there's a purlin in the way?
What exactly is his aim in giving you thr new devis?? To have his insurance cover it? If he is that willing to "help out", surely he could help with repairs to his work?
Just another thought to add to your possible options: I once reinforced a droopy old roof by bolting flat steel strips 80 x 8mm to the sides of existing rafters and MIG welding them at the apex and adding a tie-strip. It is even possible to weld them bit by bit in situe whilst cooling off in between - but you'd have to be very careful with that; better to copy the angle and weld them away from the woodwork.
Just a thought.
I agree on all your points and especially the last one of it could be worse...
We learned our lesson re the purchase as should have blatantly got an expert in before we agreed to buy the house but it was back on the market at a reduced price as the original sale fell through (due to the bank not lending to the potential buyer - I actually know this is true as ended up going through the same mortgage brokers) and the sellers were desperate to sell so we negotiated a bit more off the already reduced price.
As it was a private sale and very close to the flat we were renting whilst house hunting we visited the property many times and had a good rapport with the sellers who seemed totally genuine - needless to say we felt a little disappointed when they were clearly lying about the roof and worse still it had been leaking for a long time.
Anyway having discovered the potential cost / time implications of pursuing the sellers under vice cache decided to just make good of it and replace the roof then of course the next saga unfolded. However the roofer we used was a very good salesperson / talker and visited our property many times before we accepted his devis - we talked through the whole job in detail and it seemed to me that he was well experienced and knew what he was doing - only now do we know he was full of it and just saying whatever to win the work. However I had little reason to query any of what he said as he was recommended to us.
I realise not that never in a million years would he have said the work looked out of his comfort zone and we'd be better off finding someone more experienced in old properties etc - he would also never had admitted he hadn't worked on a similar job before. It's only my opinion he was out of his depth - he may now even to this day think he did a good job and what am I concerned about.
I guess I trusted his "expertise" and his professionalism to only take on a job he was confident in tackling as this would be my mindset. However cutting corners on roofing felt etc. is just unacceptable and nothing to do with being out of depth / incompetence etc - just downright dishonest.
A sadly familiar tale, and especially since you seem to have taken all the right steps to check out the contractor before appointing him...... although later comments about him being "out of his depth", suggest the due diligence wasn't complete.
Other SFN members will know what I am about to say: this whole misery could have been avoided if a building or property survey had been undertaken before contracting the purchase: your surveyor would have exposed the lie about the absence of leaks, and any frailty in the roof support structure before applying the increased load of modern machine-cut slates / tiles... ho hum, and not very helpful, I'm afraid.
The huissier route seems your only way to formal recourse (armed with the appropriate paperwork, they function much as Court Officers / bailiffs do in the UK), but regrettably your options are limited. Would be interesting to learn how your insurers react, so please post in due course....... it would help many others.
One other lesson is to agree up front that 30% + of the agreed contract price will be retained until the job is finished (and ideally signed-off by an independent third party) - it maintains some financial leverage.... and I expect David would add that a defects liability period should also be agreed.
I like Robert's suggestion of name and shame: whilst I keep a deeply confidential black book which sits with the 'approved contractors' list, going public can be dangerous territory, both in legal terms and also to your personal health - if you get my drift. Contractors don't appreciate being exposed as ham-fisted cowboys and charlatans with "P & O" qualifications!
A small crumb of comfort: it could have been worse. It is not exceptional for builders to take the money up front, commit some serious structural damage whilst implementing a disastrous works programme (which has to be dismantled before getting back to square one), and to burgal the property - or worse (?); let some folk occupy it as "their home", after pocketing the 'rent'..... and promptly disappearing. These things happen.
Hi,
We live in 74 and used a roofer from 01 (Ain) for that very reason - much cheaper than the locals but now it's clear why - obviously despite coming very highly recommended to us by a friend. We used to live in 73 and had a great guy do the roof on our previous house but he has a young family and plenty of work locally so not prepared to travel. However if its any consolation (to us) our neighbours used a local firm to build them a terrace at a massive expense and seems the standard of work was about on a par with our roofer and are currently battling with the various insurances to make the good and in line with work quoted in the devis.
I do not wish to name and shame in public etc. as not sure will achieve much as he will no doubt carry on regardless. In reality I don't think even if we bothered to go through the courts it would do much as the claim really would be against poor workmanship / lack of experience with working on old properties etc. Now we have had parts of the main frame strengthened and seemingly the roof won't collapse so I'm not sure a court would be all that interested.
To clarify the situation he is suggesting giving us a new devis / facture / decennale dated at some point in 2016 when he allegedly starts his new company and then we then pretend we had the work done a year later than we did so that we are covered by a decennale etc.
I think my most feasible option is to make good as best I can and then try and forget all about the whole situation. However the most frustrating thing is that for a few thousand Euros more in additional work at the time we could have had a structurally sound roof and wouldn't now have to be spending the time / money trying to make good.
However to use non-breathable membrane to save literally a few hundred euros on buying more of the proper stuff (I know he had it left over from another job as a half used roll of it sat in our garage from day one) just defies any sort of logic ethics and pretty much sums him up. I guess he thought I'd never notice but as it's black and the other stuff if orange its not rocket science...
I lose track of the blatant lies he told us throughout - the only reason I knew his company had closed was because I saw it on societe.com - there was no way he was going to tell us, he clearly looked a little shocked when I pointed it out.
I think you have to be pretty careful what you publish on the internet in France. I believe that the laws are stronger than in the UK and bear in mind that if there was an action against you you would have to defend that. Difficult and expensive enough to do in the UK where the language is not an issue but here it might prove to be very difficult, time consuming and possibly expensive. Even in the UK you can win a law case, plus costs, and the next thing that happens is the company goes bust and you are left holding the baby and you will be obliged to pay your own legal costs. These things become extremely wearing and take over people's lives. It often works both ways and contractors are quite often taken advantage of by customers who will try anything not to pay. We used to say, twenty years ago, that it was not worth suing for less than £10,000. Even the small claims procedure was pretty time consuming. I know from bitter experience. In the crash (one of the many) in 1991/2 I lost over £200,000 to clients who went bust on me. There were dozens and dozens of companies in property who went bust at that time, many people lost their houses, and a few took the ultimate step, I'm afraid. I knew two, both nice family guys.
I was just wondering if you're close enough to the Savoie border.... Artisans from the 73 are cheaper. We've just moved from the 74 to the 73 because of not only property prices, but also the building materials and artisans are cheaper. Cheaper again in the Ain, which is now really close to us. We did a bit of time copmaring between the depts and the price difference can be quite shocking.
As to your roofer, I think his idea of a new siret and clean slate is to fob you off.... you can't sue a company that didn't exist when the work was done.He knows that. It would be worth your while to go see an avocat. I mean, after spending this much, one consultation is nothing.
If all else fails, I'd call le dauphiné libére. As much as I detest this rag, they're itching for stories like this, they'd be only too happy to plaster a couple of photos of the dodgy work.
I think a carefully worded "name and shame" would work a treat. In the right places of course. Presumably you have all the evidence you need to defend a claim for defamation? I seriously doubt he would pursue a claim in any case, instead, just hoping any adverse publicity will soon disappear.
As for the advice to attach rafters beside the existing rafters that sounds pretty dodgy advice as well. I used to do loft conversions in the UK and to strengthen rafters you can indeed put a much meatier rafter beside another but easier and better for the insulation if you glue and screw underneath said rafters. Applying upward pressure if possible as you progress....just a thought...good luck
I fear your worthy thoughts about others who have or may suffer form his attentions in the future are unlikely to be achievable. In UK I cannot even get the local police to investigate my allegations of fraud against a builder who has a previous conviction. You could name him on the Forum but be aware that this may result in an action against you for defamation. All very difficult and unsatisfactory.
Hi,
Many thanks for the replies - he has / had a proper SIRET etc. as checked this online prior to the work starting and the corresponding SIRET was on his devis and invoice.
The problem is that he has since closed his company so not sure if we'd have anyone to try to make a claim against.
I also "hope" that because the devis was agreed and the work started (well the scaffold went up) before the decennale expired we may be ok.
As an update the nice charpentier who did the reinforcements to the beams cam back to have a chat with us this morning - he runs a large (and clearly totally legit business) locally so was rather dumbfounded with what I was explaining to him - he just couldn't conceive that someone would redo a roof with no insurance in place...
He stated that the roof won't collapse but I would be well advised to strengthen the chevrons by adding new ones alongside the existing prior to insulating / plasterboarding but added that there's no way he wouldn't have changed the chevrons as very little extra work with the roof off and the current ones are way underspecced - however they will bend rather than break as is. He agreed with me that aside from the incorrect membrane in places under the tiles it may be hard to prove negligence as it may be determined "best practice" to change the chevrons and not mandatory if the roof won't collapse if leave them as is. He may have been negligent in adding the tiles to the existing frame without strengthening but we've already had this rectified at our cost. He said my only option re the non-breathable membrane was to cut holes in it and leave a good gap between the membrane and the insulation that's going between the rafters - not ideal but workable...
He confirmed that it takes years and is very costly to pursue through the courts but suggested speaking to our house insurance to try and explain and see what they suggest.
However it seems the claim is more along the lines of poor craftsmanship / laziness / stinginess as opposed to negligence. However if during the work the state of the existing chevrons was pointed out to us and a sensible price quoted to replace them we would definitely have done it whereas to do now the cost is along the lines of a re-roof.
It sounds naff but if we do nothing he will carry on merrily doing the same to others in the future - had I not taken a keen interest in his work (and unfortunately more so after he's finished) really scrutinized everything and then got a structural engineer in we would be largely unaware of how bad his work is / was. I'm sure many of his punters past and future will not be aware of his working practices if when he's finished there's no leaks etc.
One day we will look back and laugh I guess - will form part of the memoirs...!
Sorry to hear about your experiences,Chris -but at least your post allows others to be more wary and cautious.
Just in passing - any experiences of French artisans taking Brits as mugs and automatically bumping up their prices/costs?
Hi Chris
I certainly feel for you.
It occurs to me that since the devis was approved and the work started before the roofers original insurance ran out a claim may succeed on that policy. His proposal for anew devis is pretty dodgy but does not involve you. Your claim would be against him or his company and if he accepted liability it is for him to produce the funds to settle it. It is not your concern how he does it. The insurer does not assume the liability merely agrees to meet the cost of it to the insured person or company. If he was not properly registered under "siret" during the whole of the work it maybe possible to achieve some redress from the local authority but I am not sure about this. No doubt other more experienced posters maybe able to advise.
I agree with the advice about litigation. I am aware of another case where litigation took nearly 4 years, costs were substantial (nearly as much as the original claim) and the eventual award from the Court did not cover either the sum claimed or the costs.
We had our roof renewed a few years ago and also had leaking around one of the Velux windows. Velux France were very helpful even though I had bought the windows from UK (much cheaper than buying them in France) and they sent an inspector to look at the installation of the windows. The conclusion was that the windows were correctly installed but a few minor alterations to the flashing were advised. In our case the leaking was traced to rain being blown up under the tiles when we had strong wind blowing towards the roof. Heavy rain without any wind was OK. We fixed this by having the tiles below the window refitted with mortar render under them to prevent any rain being blown up under the tiles. The roof was quite a shallow pitch which made the problem more likely.
Sadly I fear you may end up having to have the job redone again. If the non permeable membrane under the tiles is not replaced then continued condensation between the plasterboard and the cold roof above will certainly cause the wood structure to rot and the whole roof may fall in. Unfortunately even if you have some insurance via your bank you may find, as we did,that it will not cover defective work such as this.
You may want to seek the advice of a Hussier de Justice who is an intermediary who offers legal advice in business disputes, e.g. between a client and a building contractor/artisan. There is no equivalent in the English Legal system.
http://www.huissier-justice.fr/en/
Rgds, Mike L
Thank you David, we have a lot of photos but don't even know if he would be liable for his actions as sure he'd argue that he just put tiles on at our request. However from our side we obviously trusted his expertise / judgement in saying it would be fine.
The structural engineer was most concerned about the main frame and said we should get it strengthened ASAP before the snow comes - which we have / did. We live at around 900 metres in the Haute-Savoie so snow is guaranteed. Other parts are clearly rotten but he seemed less bothered about this but his main focus was the two main beams that we could see were already bending and that was before any snow fell.
I'm aware that chasing through the courts is costly and slow so no overly keen on this route and at the same time not sure we'd get anywhere as sure he's now bankrupt etc. and of course we don't have a valid decennale from him.
However it is maddening that it looks as though he will just continue on his merry way leaving us with a total nightmare situation to remedy - we do wonder how he sleeps at night but apart from us shopping him to the authorities for having no insurance pretty sure he knows we can't really touch him.
Very frustrating and a costly experience - I certainly hope no one else has similar experiences although looking back I'm still not 100% sure where we sent so wrong as he came so highly recommended.
Also thanks to Kent for the reply - we have insulation under the rafters which I will gradually replace / upgrade and then plasterboard over, just don't want to waste my time / money doing this if the roof needs redoing anyway.
What fun...
Much sympathy for your hassles. What can one say? Sh*t happens! I've heard a fair few tales of woe regarding roofs. Ours was, at least, replaced properly but the roofer, who was previously a friend who had worked for me on other building projects, thought he could bung up the labour price by quite a lot at the end of the job but, fortunately for us, he had finished, cleared up and taken down the scaff by then. In sympathy to his labourer, I gave him more than was originally agreed, even though he spent much of his work-time on his phone romancing someone else's wife. I didn't, however, pay him the rip-off sum he wanted. I found it sad that he cared so little about our friendship that he would put greed first.
Anyway, be that as it may, water under the bridge, whatever. I have a roof in one of the old dependences that I use as workshop space: bendy beams, diagonally laid asbestos compound tiles, wormy in its day but all dead now as the timber is really dry. My plan is to insulate it with a couple of inches of spray foam; it sticks all the slates and battens together and will add a fair bit of rigidity to the structure so I won't have to worry about it anymore: it will just be a solid mass.
This may not suit your problem at all as your roof has sarking - but I'm just throwing in the idea - just in case it's useful.
In any case, best of luck.
I have retired now but used to be a architect in London and I was also an expert witness in building litigation, and we had several surveyors who did the same in the company. Building litigation is extremely time consuming and expensive and it can assumed by no means that any "victor" will get any satisfaction as the culprits often have no valid insurance or resources. I have seen people ruined by this. A friend of mine is experiencing very similar things right now in Switzerland. I have seen it dozens of times in England. I would always say that the building industry is not a place for people of a nervous disposition. I have heard of plenty similar experiences here in France. A British friend here had to approach 9 roofing firms before he could even get one devis. I am not looking for work and don't want any but if you want to chat you can find me by Googling me in Scrignac 29 and telephone me. Have you got plenty of photos? The thing that sounds the most worrying is the sagging. Add snow loading (if you ever get that where you are) and it could be dangerous.