What Happens During a Complete Re-Roof in Hoylake?

The sequence of a re-roof does not change much between a modest semi and a substantial Edwardian house. What changes is where the time goes, and on Hoylake's period stock a great deal more of it goes into the places the roof stops.

Before Anything Visible Happens

The survey, the quotation, materials ordered, and any conservation area check. Where a scaffold has to stand on the public footway, a licence is needed from Wirral Council — on Hoylake's larger plots that is less often an issue than on a terrace, which usually helps the start date.

This is also when the reclaim question gets settled on a slate roof. Whether the existing slates are going back changes the programme as well as the price, because everything is handled twice.

The Scaffold

Up a day or two before work begins, and designed for the property rather than thrown up. On a large or complex house that takes longer than on a simple one, and it stays for the duration.

The Strip — and Why It Is Slower Here

The roof is stripped in sections, never all at once, so the building is never left open. Each area is rebuilt or sheeted before the next is opened.

On a period roof with slates being reclaimed, this phase runs considerably longer than it would otherwise. Slates are assessed as they come off — sound ones stacked for re-use, delaminated or cracked ones discarded — and every survivor will need re-holing later, because the new batten gauge will not match the old holes.

The Structure

The only opportunity anyone will have to see the roof frame properly. Rafters, purlins and wall plates are examined, with particular attention to the rafter ends where they sit on the wall plate — the commonest place for rot, because that is where a long-failing gutter deposits water.

Ask for photographs. It costs the contractor nothing, and once the underlay goes on it is invisible again for decades.

The Junctions — Where a Period Roof Spends Its Time

This is the part that distinguishes a large Victorian or Edwardian roof from a modern one, and it is worth understanding because it is most of the skilled labour.

A chimney stack

One stack needs, at minimum:

• A front apron at the lower face, dressed over the covering and into a brickwork joint
• Soakers — individual pieces interleaved with each course up both sides
• Step flashings over the soakers, cut into the mortar joints in steps following the roof line
• A back gutter behind the stack — the detail that most often fails, and the hardest to form well
• Repointing and flaunching, which is inexpensive while the scaffold is there and expensive afterwards

That is one chimney. A house with three has three of everything, and near the coast the argument for renewing lead rather than re-using it is stronger still.

Valleys, hips and dormers

Every one is a cut line, a lead detail, or both. On a roof with a rear outrigger, a bay and a dormer or two, the cutting alone is a substantial share of the programme.

Rebuilding

Underlay, battens, covering, lead, ridge and verges — the longest phase and the quiet one. Worth looking at while you still can:

• The underlay before the battens go over it — lapped properly and dressed into the gutter at the eaves, not stopping short behind it?
• The battens before the covering — new, treated, and carrying the printed grading marks?
• The lead at the chimneys — formed and dressed into the brickwork, not bedded in mastic?
• The eaves ventilation — a clear path, not blocked by insulation pushed hard into the corner?

Finishing

• Gutters cleared and tested with water
• Site cleared, and a magnetic sweep for nails
• Scaffold struck a day or two after completion
• A walk round before final payment

You should end up with a building regulations compliance certificate, a written guarantee stating what it covers and who honours it, any manufacturer warranty on the covering, and photographs of the structure and concealed work. Keep all of it with the deeds — a buyer's solicitor will ask.

The Regulations, in Brief

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.

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