28 August 2010

Leaves in our roof space - recommendations?

| Enny
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My husband was up in our roof space the other week, looking for evidence of whatever was scratching around up there at night.

While he was up there, he was a little disturbed at how much light was coming in through the tiles, as well as the large number of leaves resting on our insulation.

We have two trees in our backyard (I think they might be white oak?) that have dropped thousands of tiny leaves since we bought the place in April – these leaves get everywhere, so it’s no real surprise that some of them have got in to the roof.

I don’t want the leaves to dry up and then potentially catch fire when it gets warmer, so can anyone advise how we might go about getting this fixed? Would it be part of a standard roof restoration? Should we be getting our roof AND our insulation replaced?

Any recommendations you can provide would be very much appreciated!

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Simple solution to this…get rid of the tree. If the leaves are a fire hazard in the roof space it’ll also be a fire hazard out in your yard.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake, some light will shine into roof where tiles meet. I interpereted the post as there being more light than that. MY BAD

Yes, they are securing the trusses to the frame, or something like that.

Ags said :

I would be more worried about the light coming through the roof. Any gaps in the roof is not good. Your roof surely isn’t water proof (did you find any evidence of water) nor is it good for insulation.

There are companies that will vaccume the roof but this does not solve the original problem.

Light from tiles is very normal and doesn’t mean it isn’t water proof.

Ags said :

I would be more worried about the light coming through the roof. Any gaps in the roof is not good. Your roof surely isn’t water proof (did you find any evidence of water) nor is it good for insulation.

Light coming in in between the horizontal edges of the tiles is perfectly normal. They are just sitting on each other with an overlap so the rain runs down but light (and leaves) can get in underneath. Sarking just hides it – leaves, particularly those little ones still build up in between the tiles and the sarking.

Tile roofs are not 100% waterproof. Strong winds or a build up of hail stones can cause water to get under the tiles. Sarking acts as another level of water proofing but usually just directs the water into your eaves or the light fitting the electrician accessed by cutting a hole and not patching it.

Even tin roofs are not completely sealed. I worked in plenty 50+ year old corrugated iron roof spaces that have a thick layer of crud covering everything.

Ags said :

I am in the process of replacing tiled roof for tin roof. Be very careful…there are alot of dodgy folk out there.

Did you get a builder to quote on the work? Replacing tiles with tin isn’t a straight forward swap. Tiles weigh a lot more than tin and effectively hold everything down. Tin roofs, being lighter, need to have your trusses secured to the the frame so that the whole lot doesn’t lift off in the next stiff westerly.

Tiled roofs always let in light. Think about it: you have a couple of rough gritty surfaces, one tile resting on the next. Unless you go to a lot of unnecessary trouble polishing them flat or sticking them together, they’ll always be enough gap for you to see light through, especially when you consider that you are in a dark roofspace looking out to a bright sunlit day. Don’t worry about it. Or only worry about the cracked tiles that actually let water in – you should replace those.

I would be more worried about the light coming through the roof. Any gaps in the roof is not good. Your roof surely isn’t water proof (did you find any evidence of water) nor is it good for insulation.

There are companies that will vaccume the roof but this does not solve the original problem.

I am in the process of replacing tiled roof for tin roof. Be very careful…there are alot of dodgy folk out there.
I have been hunting quotes for months now. Some people didn’t return my call, some didn’t show up, some showed up but I never recieved the quote. Apparently they have that much work going on at the schools that they have no time to do household work.

My quotes ranged from $9,000 to $23,000 for tin and $5,000 to $10,000 to replace battons and tiles.

Also, NEVER EVER get the blokes in to paint your roof. BIGGEST RIP OFF EVER>>>>:>

DeadlySchnauzer10:42 am 28 Aug 10

Probably the simplest way to fix the core problem is to staple sarking to the roof trusses from inside the roof space. This should be relatively cheap to get done, and will mean the leaves get trapped between the sarking and the tiles. The ideal solution is to put the sarking between the tiles and the roof trusses, but this is way more expensive as it means all your roof tiles have to be removed and then put back.

As for the leaves currently in there, there are definitely companies out there that do roof space cleans. They will use high power vaccums to clean everything out, but will keep all your existing insulation in place.

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