If you are planning a new roof on your Sprowston home, here is a clear account of what happens at every stage, from the first inspection to the moment the scaffold comes down.
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Before any price is agreed and before any material is ordered, the roof needs to be looked at properly. A walk around the outside of the property and a look at the roof from ground level with binoculars will give a roofer an initial read, but it is not enough to quote accurately. The inside of the loft must be checked, and ideally someone needs to get on the roof itself.
What we are looking for at this stage: the condition of the existing tiles or slates, the state of the battens and felt beneath them, whether there is any visible rot or damage to the rafters and purlins, the condition of the ridge, hip and valley details, and how the flashings are performing at chimneys, abutments and any penetrations through the roof. Any of these that need attention will affect the scope - and therefore the cost - of the job.
An honest inspection also looks at what the existing roof structure can carry. If you want to upgrade from concrete tiles to clay, or if the existing timbers are undersized for modern standards, that needs to be identified before work starts, not discovered halfway through.
A re-roof cannot be done safely from ladders alone. Scaffolding is erected around the elevation or elevations being worked on before any tiles are touched. On a standard semi-detached or detached house, this typically means a full scaffold with a working platform at eaves height and guard rails above. On terraced properties or where neighbours share a party wall, access arrangements may need a little more thought.
The scaffolding stays up for the full duration of the roofing work and is only struck once the roof is complete, including all ridge, hip and flashing details. Do not let any roofer talk you into working without adequate scaffolding - it is a safety issue and it also affects the quality of the work, because a roofer working from a ladder cannot do the job to the same standard as one working from a proper platform.
Once the scaffold is up, the existing covering is stripped off. Tiles are removed and loaded into skips or sorted for disposal. If any tiles are worth keeping - for example, old clay pantiles that might be useful for future repairs elsewhere - they can be stacked carefully, but in most cases the old covering is removed in full.
The old battens and felt come off too. This is not optional. Laying new tiles on old battens and old felt defeats much of the purpose of a full re-roof. Old felt becomes brittle and splits; old battens may be partially rotten or fixed at the wrong gauge for modern tile specifications. Everything beneath the tiles comes off down to the bare rafters.
This is also the point at which the structural timbers are fully visible. The roofer should walk the rafters and check every one for soft spots, rot or damage. Any section that is compromised gets repaired or replaced before anything new goes on top. This is non-negotiable on a proper re-roof.
If rotten or damaged rafters are found, the roofer needs to splice in new timber or sister a new rafter alongside the damaged one. Purlins - the horizontal timbers that support the rafters midspan - and ridge boards should also be checked. If a roof has been leaking for a while before replacement was decided on, there is a reasonable chance some timber has been affected.
This is one area where the quoted price can change once stripping begins. A good roofer will flag this possibility upfront and tell you what additional timber work is likely to cost per metre run, so you are not surprised. If the original inspection revealed any cause for concern, this should already be factored into the discussion.
Once the timbers are sound, a new breathable membrane is laid over the rafters. Breathable underlays allow water vapour from the loft space to escape through the roof, which reduces condensation on the timbers and battens. They replaced traditional bitumen-felt in new installations for good reason - felt becomes brittle with age and blocks vapour movement, which accelerates batten rot from the inside.
The membrane is laid horizontally across the rafters starting at the eaves, with each course overlapping the one below by the manufacturer's specified amount - typically 150mm or more. At verges, ridges and any penetrations, the membrane needs to be lapped and dressed properly to prevent wind-driven rain from getting in at the edges. Cutting corners here is one of the commonest causes of new roofs developing problems within a few years.
Treated timber battens are fixed through the membrane into the rafters. The gauge - the spacing between battens - is calculated for the specific tile being used and the pitch of the roof. This is not a number to guess at. The gauge determines how much each tile overlaps the one below it, which directly controls how weathertight the roof is. A steeper pitch can use a slightly larger gauge; a shallow pitch needs a smaller gauge and more overlap to cope with slower water run-off.
Counter-battens - vertical strips fixed over the rafters before the horizontal battens - are sometimes used on low-pitch roofs or where extra drainage behind the batten is needed. Not every installation needs them, but they are worth discussing on flatter pitches.
Tiles are fixed starting at the eaves and working upward. Eaves tiles are typically cut or a shorter tile used so the bottom course starts at the correct overhang into the gutter. From there, each course is fixed in a staggered bond pattern - vertical joints in one course fall over the middle of tiles in the course above and below, which prevents water tracking straight down a joint line.
Fixing - how tiles are nailed or clipped - varies by position on the roof and by exposure. Tiles in the perimeter zones (eaves, verges, ridges and hips) are always mechanically fixed. In the field of the roof, the fixing specification depends on the pitch and how exposed the location is. There are published guidelines that set the minimum requirements, and any roofer working to a proper standard should be able to explain how they have applied them to your specific roof.
Around chimneys, pipes, skylights and abutments, the tiling is cut and fitted before the flashings go on. The quality of this cutting and fitting affects how well the flashing performs.
Flashings seal the junctions between the roof and anything that passes through or adjoins it - chimneys, party walls, dormer cheeks, skylights and soil pipes. On a properly done re-roof, all flashings are renewed. Using old flashing lead that has been folded and unfolded is not good practice - lead fatigues, and old sections that look intact can crack within a few years once re-dressed.
Lead is the standard material for flashings on pitched roofs. It is cut, dressed and fixed using clips and mortar at the top edge to prevent wind uplift. Step flashings at chimneys and abutments are interwoven with the tile courses as tiling progresses, which is why flashings and tiling cannot be treated as separate operations - they have to be done together.
The ridge is the line along the very top of the roof where the two slopes meet. Ridge tiles - usually half-round or angular in profile - are either mortar-bedded or fixed using a dry-ridge system. Dry-ridge uses mechanically fixed unions and a ventilated flexible strip rather than mortar. The advantage of dry-ridge is that it does not crack or shrink over time the way mortar bedding does. Both approaches are valid - the roofer should explain which they are using and why.
Hips - the external angles where two slopes meet on a hipped roof - are treated in the same way. Valley details, where two slopes meet internally, are either formed in lead or using purpose-made valley tiles, depending on the tile specification and the angle of the valley.
Once all tiling, flashings and ridge work are complete, the scaffold is cleared of debris and the site around the property is cleaned up. Gutters are cleared of tile dust and fragments, which if left will block downpipes and cause overflow. The roof is checked over to confirm all tiles are properly seated, no fixings are missing, and no membrane or batten material has been left exposed at verges or eaves.
The scaffolding is then struck, and any damage to gardens or paths caused by the scaffold feet is made good. A good roofer leaves the property in the condition they found it, minus the old roof.
We carry out new roof installations across Sprowston, Norwich, Poringland, Costessey and the surrounding area. If you want to understand exactly what a re-roof on your property would involve before committing to any work, call us to arrange a survey and we will walk you through it.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
