Dry ridge installation - is it ok?

[gmiller]

Hi there,

I'd really appreciate some advice. We've just had a dry ridge system installed (previously wet ridge with mortar). This was to fix a leak near the chimney but the roofer said the ridge tiles were in a bad way and they were the likely cause and suggested a dry ridge system (mortar was indeed falling out of the area). Some photos of the work below. My questions are:

1/ does this look like a satisfactory job?
2/ should the vent roll not be stuck down to the tiles (it looks raised in places)?
3/ will this be weatherproof for now (til spring), while we wait to have it redone it needed? Or is this an urgent problem (I'm dreading the next storm!)
4/ is a dry ridge system even appropriate for this type of roof/tile
5/ won't birds love to nest in the gaps?!

Thanks for your advice.

 

[DAZB]

Looks terrible to me and doesn't sit very well at all in places. For those tiles i would say it needed a mortared ridge bed and pointing as that is not suited to that profile. The joint where the ridge meets the hips is badly done too. Just out of interest, what were you charged for that ?

 

[datarebal]

No hip trays ....

 

[^woody^]

+
No ridge/hip caps or suitable finishing.
Roll not dressed down properly.

Amateurish would cast amateurs in a bad light. So, plain old "crap" would be most appropriate.

The main reason for dry systems is to allow the work to be done to a good standard by less skilled workers. But the lads here are just taking the piiss.

 

[gmiller]

Looks terrible to me and doesn't sit very well at all in places. For those tiles i would say it needed a mortared ridge bed and pointing as that is not suited to that profile. The joint where the ridge meets the hips is badly done too. Just out of interest, what were you charged for that ?

Thanks for the reply. Looks like we're going to have to get it redone. It was 1100 quid.

 

[gmiller]

+
No ridge/hip caps or suitable finishing.
Roll not dressed down properly.

Amateurish would cast amateurs in a bad light. So, plain old "crap" would be most appropriate.

The main reason for dry systems is to allow the work to be done to a good standard by less skilled workers. But the lads here are just taking the piiss.

Thanks for the reply. It looks like I'll have to get this redone... How urgent a job is it would you say? Is an emergency repair needed or can it wait a few weeks to a month if needed would you say, i.e. would we expect lots of water getting in if there was a bad storm?

 

[^woody^]

As it's probably not a short-term problem, so could wait a while. It's a mess, but that does not automatically mean it will leak.

After a bit of heavy rain, just pop your head in the loft and have a look for any damp timbers under the ridge and hip.

Just a note about the hips. They always look great in the brochures on new tiles - they always tend to show them on flat or very low profile tiles for some reason
But getting hips dead in-line on those deep profile tiles and especially tiles which themselves may not be flat, is very difficult. So I would not expect a new dry hip to be perfectly in line with even gaps. It should certainly be better than that though.

I'd also expect to see that the moss has been cleaning off where the hip roll (the corrugated bit) is adhered to the tiles with no gaps.

 

[gmiller]

As it's probably not a short-term problem, so could wait a while. It's a mess, but that does not automatically mean it will leak.

After a bit of heavy rain, just pop your head in the loft and have a look for any damp timbers under the ridge and hip.

Just a note about the hips. They always look great in the brochures on new tiles - they always tend to show them on flat or very low profile tiles for some reason
But getting hips dead in-line on those deep profile tiles and especially tiles which themselves may not be flat, is very difficult. So I would not expect a new dry hip to be perfectly in line with even gaps. It should certainly be better than that though.

I'd also expect to see that the moss has been cleaning off where the hip roll (the corrugated bit) is adhered to the tiles with no gaps.

Thanks again mate. That's helped us quite a lot today - just to know that we're likely not going to be inundated in the short term. We've got some proper roofing companies coming to look on Monday. The guy who did this was a rooflining company (fascias etc) and probably not the right person for the job. A nice guy that's done work for us before but possibly not with as much experience on a roof proper. It's really got us down tbh. And we can still see daylight in the loft near the chimney so I think the original problem is still in that area so we'll get a full roof survey done. But if we can rest a bit over Xmas not expecting to have to put buckets everywhere for now, we'll get it sorted properly as soon as we can get people booked in. Thanks again for taking the time to reply.