Roofs fail in a fairly predictable order, and near the coast the order is the same but the clock runs faster. Knowing which stage you are at tells you what to do.
Roofs do not fail all at once. They go through a sequence, and the sequence is consistent enough that knowing which stage you are at is most of the decision.
Near the coast the order is the same as anywhere. What changes is the pace, because the components that fail first are metal, and salt-laden air is harder on metal.
The roof is doing its job. Occasionally something happens to it — a gale takes a slate, a ridge tile cracks. Each event has an identifiable cause and after the repair the roof is back where it was.
Right answer: repair, comfortably. There is no argument for doing anything more.
This is where a coastal roof diverges from an inland one, and it arrives earlier.
Lead at a chimney splits or lifts. Flashings that were bedded in mastic rather than formed properly start letting water past. Hip irons and gutter brackets corrode. Mortar at the ridge and verges cracks and lets the tiles loosen.
Right answer: repair, but plan. These are genuine repairs with years of value in them. It is also the moment to start thinking about the eventual re-roof, because everything failing at this stage — lead, ridge, gutters, fascias — is work that would be renewed as part of a re-roof anyway.
Invisible from outside, and the stage almost nobody notices. Old bitumen felt embrittles and tears, especially at the eaves where it has been carrying water and taking daylight through the gutter gap for decades.
It matters because the underlay is the second line of defence. With it intact, a slipped slate is an inconvenience — water reaches the felt and runs to the gutter. With it perished, the same slipped slate is water in the house.
Right answer: it depends on the covering. If the slates or tiles are sound and well fixed you may have years left, but you are running without a safety net. And the underlay cannot be renewed without stripping the covering, so the two jobs are the same job.
The decisive stage, and the one a coastal position brings on sooner.
Slates or tiles begin coming down in ones and twos, in different places, with no storm to blame. Every fixing on the roof went in at the same time and has sat in the same conditions since, so they corrode together and reach the end of their working lives together.
Right answer: replace. There is no repair for this, because the problem is not in the place that failed — it is in the several hundred fixings that have not let go yet. Refixing individually is a treadmill, and each visit pays for access, site set-up and disposal in full.
There is a silver lining specific to this stage, and it is worth knowing. If the fixings have gone but the slates are sound — which is common, because slate outlasts nails by a wide margin — the roof can be stripped, everything underneath renewed, and the original slates relaid. The building looks exactly as it did. Worth pricing alongside a new covering.
Water that has been getting in for years starts affecting the structure. Rafter ends soften where a failing gutter has been depositing water on them. Battens rot. Ceilings mark in more than one place.
Right answer: replace, and expect timber work. The cost at this stage is higher than it would have been at stage four, because the structure needs attention as well as the covering. There is also a salvage argument: slates come off cleanest from a sound roof, so waiting costs you material as well as money.
Ten minutes in the loft with a torch, on a bright day and ideally during or just after heavy rain, will place you on this curve better than anything visible from the pavement.
| Stage | What a repair buys | Sensible response |
|---|---|---|
| One — sound, with incidents | Many years | Repair |
| Two — metalwork failing | Several years | Repair, and start planning |
| Three — underlay perished | Uncertain; risk moves indoors | Judgement call |
| Four — fixings gone generally | Months | Replace |
| Five — timbers affected | Months, and damage continues | Replace now |
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 look and tell you honestly. If the roof has years left in it, that is what we will say.
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