France Property Renovation

Roofs are big and expensive, but you knew that already. The roof will almost certainly be the largest single expense in a building or renovation project. This is largely simply because of the size – roughly 20 – 50% more than the ‘habitable space’ area of one floor of the interior.

First consideration is – do you need a new roof? Barns and other old buildings usually have a roof of some description, so ideally you would like to retain it.

When we bought our barn we were told it had a ‘new roof’ and, being not very bright, we took that to be a good thing. That should make renovation cheap then, we thought. But a barn roof is not a house roof. It had been tiled with cheap, mechanical type tiles, with no structural work being done on the carpentry beneath. Of course, it had no insulation. End result – all the mechanical tiles had to be removed and disposed of, the woodwork underneath repaired and strengthened, and the roof relaid with insulation and canal tiles. Total cost – more or less the same as if the roof had not been redone at some point.

Before adding a new roof or roof tiles you should always verify that the supporting structure can support any extra weight you are adding.
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