There is no single answer, and anyone who gives you one over the phone is guessing. What can be set out precisely is which variables move the number, so that when quotations arrive you can see why they differ.
This is the most common question we are asked and the hardest to answer honestly in the abstract, because the figure depends on the roof rather than the town. What Chester does change is the mix of buildings, and that mix is unusually wide: a historic walled centre, Victorian and Edwardian suburbs, inter-war semis and a great deal of modern housing, all within a few miles of each other.
Rather than invent a number, this guide sets out what actually moves it. Understand these and you can read three quotations and tell which one has been priced properly and which has left something out that will reappear as a variation halfway through.
This is the point most people are surprised by, and it is worth putting first.
Area gives you a starting point. What adjusts it is the number of places the roof stops and starts. A plain gable roof over a semi is about as efficient a roof to cover as exists: two rectangles, almost no cutting, one or two abutments. Add hips, a valley over a rear outrigger, a bay roof at the front and two chimney stacks, and the same measured area takes considerably longer — because every intersection needs cutting and most need lead.
Lead work is slow, skilled and priced by weight, and it is the single biggest reason an older Chester property costs more per square metre than a modern estate house of the same size.
Stripping natural slate is slower and more careful work than stripping concrete tile, particularly where slates are being sorted so the sound ones can be re-used. There is also more handling involved, even though the covering itself is lighter.
The one genuine unknown on any roof anywhere, and the largest single reason a final account differs from a quotation. Rafter ends softened by years of an overflowing gutter, a purlin that has taken on a bow, battens split along the nail line — none of it is visible until the covering comes off.
A good quotation states clearly what is included, what would be treated as additional, and the rate for it. Agreed in advance and in writing, timber found during the strip becomes a scope conversation rather than the commonest dispute on a re-roof.
Usually the largest single decision. Natural slate is the highest material cost and the slowest to lay; concrete interlocking tile is the lowest of both; clay tile and fibre cement slate sit between them. On a house inside the conservation area the choice may be narrower than you expect.
Costs largely set by the building rather than the roof, which is why they weigh more heavily on a small roof than a large one. A detached house with room on the plot is straightforward; a property where the scaffold has to stand on the public footway under a licence from Cheshire West and Chester Council is not, and that licence affects the start date as well as the price.
Very few roofs need only a covering. New underlay, new battens, lead to chimneys, abutments and valleys, ridge and verge treatment, ventilation at eaves and ridge, the insulation work where it is triggered, and usually fascias, soffits and guttering while the scaffold is standing. Doing the guttering later means paying for a second scaffold.
Three significant costs on any roofing job are set by the building rather than by how much roof you are working on: scaffolding, site set-up, and waste disposal. They barely change between a small roof and a large one.
That has a consequence people rarely follow through. Every separate visit pays all three in full. A roof dealt with in four visits over eight years has paid for four scaffolds, four set-ups and four waste runs — for one roof that still needs replacing at the end of it.
Set the totals aside and compare the following. If a quotation does not tell you these things, ask, and get the answer in writing.
Three quotations for the same defined scope can be compared on price. Three quotations for three different scopes cannot, and the cheapest of those is usually just the one that assumed the least.
Two systems, and they are separate. Planning: a like-for-like re-roof does not materially affect the external appearance of a building, so under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 it is not development at all and needs no permission. A visible change of covering can be a different matter, particularly inside a conservation area.
Building regulations: where more than 50% of the roof's surface area is renewed, or the work forms part of a major renovation, regulation 23 of the Building Regulations 2010 requires the roof to be brought up to current thermal standards so far as that is technically, functionally and economically feasible. A patch repair does not trigger it, and neither does a roof over unheated space such as a detached garage. The work is signed off through building control or by a roofer registered under a competent person scheme, and you should receive a certificate.
We quote after looking at the roof, and that means the loft as well as the outside — the state of the underlay, the battens and the rafter ends says far more about the real scope of a job than anything visible from the pavement.
We will also tell you plainly if a roof does not need replacing yet. There is a point at which repeated repairs stop being economic, and a point well before it where they are still the sensible answer.
Every Roofline quotation follows a proper look at the roof and the loft — not a postcode and an assumption.
Complete new roofs, re-roofing and roof replacement across Chester, the Wirral, Deeside and the surrounding areas.
Tell us about the property and the roof, and we will come back to you — usually the same day.
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