It’s a roof Jim but not as we know it... (Or, how to get construction right!)

Another horror story emerged from one of our surveyors recently when they were called out to unauthorised work where an outbuilding was being extended and converted.

The "contractor" was clearly a fan of timber because aside from the roof extension shown in the picture below, they had also removed a large section of masonry to form a new opening from the rear of the house and supported it on a structural timber door frame spanning over 3m.

Usually our articles highlight poor building practice and then follow up with tips on how to build it correctly to ensure compliance with building regulations.

In this instance we are at a complete loss where to start other than to begin with the basics of construction.

The right way to extend a roof

In the aforementioned picture you might spot the fact that the new roof joists are laid horizontally at 600mm centres, at a minimal pitch.

This was apparently to avoid removing the existing roof covering and still keep a reasonable head height in the room.

You might notice that the uncoursed masonry over the timber door lintel is held together with two m.s. angles screwed into the vertical timber support that’s actually carrying the 3m timber lintel over the rear patio door on the other side of the external wall.

It gets worse when you look at the quality of the new single skin external walls:

The vertical timber carries the new wall plate behind another single skin that has had some form of render applied to it.

Probably most surprising is that the house owner was actually paying someone to do this - it’s not a DIY job.

Standing up for quality construction

It does however highlight the enforcement function of council teams having a duty to deal with work like this all over the country, when they would much rather be dealing with the calibre of developments that make it to our LABC Building Excellence Awards each year.

Needless to say, the offending work has now been removed, the building made safe and the local council are looking to prosecute the "contractor".

This really is one of the worst examples of building work we have come across, unless of course you know about something worse...