What Should I Expect From a Complete New Roof Installation?

We have written up what happens on site day by day, and how long each stage takes — see what happens during a complete re-roof and how long it takes.

This one is deliberately from the other side of the fence. What will be asked of you, when, and what you should have in your hands when it is finished.

Before You Accept a Quotation

The decisions that belong here

These are unhurried, and they should all be settled before anything is ordered, because changing them later is expensive.

• The covering — named by manufacturer and range, or by producer and grading on slate.
• The fittings. Ridge, hip and verge systems vary a lot in how conspicuous they are. Ask to see a photograph of a finished roof using them.
• What shares the scaffold. Chimney repointing, fascias, soffits, guttering, high-level pointing. Cheap now; each carries its own access later.
• The insulation route, and the ventilation that goes with it.
• The rate for defective timber, in writing. This is the one item nobody can price in advance, and agreeing it now is what stops it becoming a dispute later.

The checks that belong to you

• Whether the address is inside the Higher Runcorn conservation area — Halton Borough Council can confirm it. Only relevant if the appearance is changing.
• Whether the property is listed.
• Public liability insurance, and that the certificate is current.
• Who actually carries out the work — employed teams or subcontractors — and who honours the guarantee if the firm changes hands.

Before the Start Date

Short, practical, and easier done in advance than on the morning.

• Clear the loft, or at least everything under the slopes. Dust and debris come down during a strip, and anything left up there will be covered.
• Move cars off the drive for the duration, and agree where the skip and the materials will sit.
• Take down anything fixed high on the walls — hanging baskets, satellite dishes, security lights — or agree who does.
• Move or protect what is directly below the eaves, including greenhouses, garden furniture and anything fragile.
• Tell the neighbours, especially where the scaffold oversails or where you share a boundary.
• Plan for pets. The noise during a strip is considerable and cats in particular tend to disappear for the week.
• Tell your insurer that work is planned.

While the Work Is On

What you should expect

• The roof stripped in manageable sections and never left wholly open
• Open areas sheeted overnight and in poor weather
• Material chuted or lowered into a skip, not dropped off the scaffold
• A tidy site at the end of each day
• Someone able to tell you what is happening tomorrow

The one decision that will arrive mid-job

Timber. Once the covering is off, the rafters, purlins and wall plates are visible for the first and only time, and anything defective has to be dealt with before the roof is closed up.

You should be shown what was found, told what it will cost at the rate already agreed, and given the decision. What you should not get is a larger invoice at the end with an explanation attached.

What should not happen

• A request for a large payment before work has meaningfully started
• Verbal variations to the scope with nothing in writing
• Old lead disappearing with no conversation about it — it has real scrap value, and a contractor keeping it is fine, provided it was discussed
• Insulation stuffed hard into the eaves, sealing the ventilation path
• Ridge or hip bedded in mortar alone, with no mechanical fixing

At Handover

Before the scaffold comes down, walk round with whoever ran the job:

• Gutters cleared and tested with water
• Lead at every junction, dressed rather than mastic-filled
• Ridge and hip mechanically fixed
• Ventilation visible at the eaves and at high level
• Verges finished as agreed
• The loft dry, and the insulation clear of the eaves path

Then the site: cleared, and swept with a magnet for nails. A re-roof produces an extraordinary number of old nails and they end up in the drive and the lawn.

The Four Documents to Keep

• The building regulations compliance certificate. A buyer's solicitor will ask for this, and not having it is a real problem at sale.
• The written guarantee — what it covers, for how long, and who honours it.
• Any manufacturer warranty on the covering.
• Photographs of the structure before it was closed up. They cost nothing and they are your only record of a part of your house nobody will see again for decades.

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.

More New Roof Advice for Runcorn

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