On a concrete tiled roof there are three quite different situations that look similar from the pavement. Work through them in order and most roofs resolve.
On the concrete tiled roofs that cover most of Ellesmere Port's housing, three quite different situations look similar from the ground. Telling them apart is most of the decision, and it can largely be done from the pavement with a pair of binoculars and ten minutes in the loft.
Work through these in order and stop when you get a definite answer.
Look at the exposed lower edge of the tiles — the part that overhangs the course below.
Clean, sharp edges. The pigmented surface may have weathered away and the roof may look patchy grey, but the tile itself is sound. This is cosmetic fading and it is not a reason to replace anything. Go to question two.
Ragged, flaking or crumbling edges. The surface has broken down. Water is getting into a porous tile, freezing and taking the face off. Where that is general across the roof, the covering has genuinely reached the end of its life.
This needs ten minutes in the loft with a torch, on a bright day and ideally during or just after heavy rain. It is the highest-value inspection available to a homeowner and it costs nothing.
The underlay is the second line of defence. With it intact, a slipped tile is an inconvenience — water reaches the felt and runs down to the gutter. With it perished, the same slipped tile puts water into the house.
The underlay cannot be renewed without stripping the covering, so if it has perished the two jobs are the same job. There is no version of this where you fix the underlay cheaply and carry on.
The pattern matters far more than the number.
One area, with a cause. A gale, a falling branch, a blocked valley that overflowed. That is a repair — fix the cause and the roof carries on.
Different places, no cause. Tiles working loose across the roof means the fixings or the battens have reached the end of their life generally. Every one went in at the same time and has sat in the same conditions since, so they fail together. There is no repair for that, because the problem is not in the place that failed.
Only reach this if the first three left it genuinely open. Look at what the roof has cost over five years and how many separate visits that was.
Three costs on any roofing visit are set by the building rather than the work — access, site set-up and disposal — and they barely change with the size of the repair. Every visit pays all three in full, which is why the running total surprises people.
| What you find | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Faded, sharp tile edges, sound underlay | Cosmetic. Leave it. |
| Faded, sharp edges, underlay perished | Replace — the underlay decides it |
| Crumbling tile edges, general | Replace — the covering is finished |
| Tiles off in one area, identifiable cause | Repair the cause |
| Tiles off in several places, no cause | Replace |
| Repair intervals shortening | Replace |
| Timbers soft at the rafter ends | Replace, and expect timber work |
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 tell you which of these you have, and if the roof has years left we will say so.
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