The short answer is yes, and it is the most straightforward re-roof there is. The longer answer is that “the same again” rarely means identical, and the differences are all below the tiles.
This comes up constantly and the answer is straightforwardly yes. Replacing a tiled roof with a new tiled roof is the simplest re-roof there is: no change of appearance, so no planning question, and no structural surprise from a change of covering weight.
What people usually mean, though, is “can I just have the same again?” — and that deserves a fuller answer, because the tiles are the part of the roof that changes least. Almost everything underneath them will be different, and that is the point of doing the job.
If the roof is more than about thirty years old the underlay is almost certainly bitumen felt, and by now it will be brittle, torn at the eaves and sagging between the rafters. Modern breathable membranes do a different job: they shed water that gets past the tiles while allowing water vapour out of the roof space, which reduces condensation.
This is one of the genuine improvements in a re-roof, and it is completely invisible when finished.
New battens go on as a matter of course, graded and treated. There is a technical reason as well as a durability one: batten gauge — the spacing between them — is set by the tile, its headlap and the roof pitch. A different tile needs a different gauge, so the old battens would be in the wrong places even if they were sound.
Battens should carry printed markings showing they are graded to the British Standard. That is on the timber, so you can walk out and read it while they are going on — the easiest quality check available to any homeowner.
Older roofs almost always have ridge tiles and verges bedded in mortar. Mortar cracks, admits water and eventually lets the ridge tiles work loose — one of the most predictable failures on a tiled roof, and more so in an exposed position.
Since the revision to BS 5534, mortar no longer counts as a means of fixing. Ridge and hip must be mechanically fixed whether or not mortar is used as well, which in practice usually means a dry system.
Older tiled roofs frequently have no designed ventilation at all; they relied on being draughty. A modern roof with insulation and a membrane above needs air moving through the space, or moisture accumulates and the timbers suffer. Eaves and ridge ventilation is part of a properly specified re-roof.
The pattern is calculated for the address rather than carried over from whatever was there before. On the exposed western side of the peninsula that calculation frequently calls for more than the original roof had.
Every tile has a minimum pitch set by its manufacturer, below which it is not warranted. Measure before choosing, particularly on a rear outrigger or a later extension, which is often shallower than the main roof.
Compare the new tile's weight per square metre against the old. Modern interlocking tiles are frequently lighter than the plain tiles or older concrete units they replace, which is helpful. Where the new tile is heavier, the structure needs checking rather than assuming.
If the original range is discontinued, the nearest equivalent is chosen. On a full re-roof that is fine. If you are doing one slope of a pair and the neighbouring roof stays as it is, be realistic about how close a match is achievable.
Two separate systems. 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, where the test is applied more tightly.
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 — 0.16 W/(m²K) for a roof in an existing dwelling. A patch repair does not trigger it, and neither does a roof over unheated space such as a detached garage.
We will check the pitch, the structure and the batten gauge, and specify a tile that actually suits the roof.
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