Roof verges question

[jonwm]

I'm losing quite a bit of mortar from the verges on my roof, house is about 30 years old now and has no maintenance from what I can see on the roof.

Had a couple of people round and all have suggested "capping" them, its called a dry ridge.

Seems a good idea, basically remove the old cement, drill into the beams and away you go.

So I've had varying quoted, some very cheap other quite expensive, but I have no idea how much I should be paying.

3 bed detached in the midlands

Both Gable ends fascia and capping with the dry ridge. (cement removed)
Canopy over the front of the house same (only about 1m of capping each side)
Guttering replaced to the rear
1.5 days work

Is about £1500 right??

[roofer]

Doesn't seem a bad price. Try MW Roofline up that way, Matt Walker owns it, does a proper job.

[benson1980]

Do you definitely want a dry verge? I got our wet verge repointed as we have exactly the same issue (same age as your house), plus securing of undercloak. Was just over £200 for one gable end

[simion_levi]

benson1980 said:

Do you definitely want a dry verge? I got our wet verge repointed as we have exactly the same issue (same age as your house), plus securing of undercloak. Was just over £200 for one gable end

Was that for repointing, or actually rebedding? It's something I'm going to need to look at in the not too distant future, but everything I've read suggests that tiles need to be lifted, cleaned and then set on new mortar if you want it to last.

[p1esk]

When we had some roof work done on our bungalow 18 months ago, the builder fitted lead flashings over the end roof tiles and part way down the face of the verge timbers. To my mind that made a really nice job of it.

I don't know the cost of that element of the work as it was part of a general roof renovation, but I was very happy with the overall result.

[brycheiniog1]

I had something similar done in February. We have a fairly large place out in the fens with 4 big gable ends. We came home one day in January to find large pieces of cement all over the drive. Closer inspection showed the verges on the 3 other gable ends was starting to pull out as well. I spoke to a couple of roofers and all of them suggested a dry verge system in place of the cement. The house is in a fairly exposed position and they were all concerned about the type of tiles we have on the roof as it is difficult to get them to bond to the cement.

I paid ~£2k for a team of three men and a cherry picker (It is far to high to do off ladders and scaffold would have been awkward) to do the work over two days. They removed all the old cement and fitted a continuous dry verge. It has had the side affect of making the roof much quieter when it is windy. Before doing the work we could hear wind moving the tile underlay around in stormy weather but now it is almost silent..

Jonathan

[jonwm]

Thanks for all the feedback, I'm made up on the dry verge system, getting facia board too as the wood is not looking the best. Will post a before and after pic.