Several tonnes of material come off a house during a re-roof. Some of it has value that belongs to you, most of it is waste, and a small amount needs handling carefully.
A complete re-roof takes several tonnes of material off a house — covering, battens, underlay, lead, mortar and decades of accumulated debris. Where all of it goes is worth understanding, partly because some of it has value that belongs to you, and partly because a small amount of it needs careful handling.
The roof is never opened all at once. It comes off in manageable sections, and each section is rebuilt or sheeted before the next is opened, so the building stays weathertight throughout.
Material comes down via a chute into a skip, or is bagged and lowered. What does not happen — and if you see it, say so — is material being dropped off the scaffold.
The most commonly reclaimed roofing material, and on Neston's older stock frequently worth reclaiming. Slates are sorted as they come off: sound ones stacked, delaminated or cracked ones discarded. Expect meaningful losses, and expect every survivor to need re-holing, because the new batten gauge will not match the old holes.
Whether they go back on your roof or are sold on is a conversation to have at quotation stage rather than on the day. Inside a conservation area whose appraisal records Welsh slate, putting them back has value beyond the material.
Good clay tiles have reclaim value, particularly in matching patterns. As with slate, the survival rate governs whether the handling is worth it.
The one people do not think about. Lead has real scrap value, and older property with chimney stacks, valleys and abutments can yield a meaningful weight of it.
There is nothing improper about a contractor taking the old lead — it is common practice and often reflected in the quotation. What is not right is nobody mentioning it. Ask what happens to the lead. A straight answer is a good sign.
Rarely worth salvaging on a domestic re-roof. Old battens are undersized by modern standards, full of nail holes and often perished.
Most of this is inert construction waste. Crushed tile and slate can be recycled as aggregate, and reputable contractors use waste transfer facilities that separate what can be recovered. It is fair to ask where the waste is going.
That last item deserves a mention of its own. A re-roof produces an extraordinary number of old nails, and they end up in the garden and the drive. A magnetic sweep at the end is standard practice — ask for it if it is not offered.
This deserves a proper answer rather than either alarm or a shrug, because a great deal of what is said about it is wrong.
HSE's guidance is direct: if a building was built or refurbished before 2000, assume asbestos may be present. The ban came in stages — blue and brown asbestos were prohibited during the 1980s, and white asbestos in 1999. The year 2000 is a deliberately cautious line rather than the date of the ban, because stock already held could still be installed afterwards.
Given the age of much Neston property, and the number that have been altered or extended since, that line covers essentially all of it.
This is the part most often misstated. The “duty to manage asbestos” under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 does not apply to a private domestic home. As a homeowner you are not carrying out a work activity, and there is no legal requirement on you to commission an asbestos survey for your own house.
But that does not mean no law applies. COSHH applies, and regulation 5 binds the contractor regardless of the type of premises: before doing work liable to expose anyone to asbestos, they must have carried out a suitable and sufficient assessment of whether it is present — or, if there is doubt, presume that it is present and that it is not white asbestos alone, and work accordingly.
Asbestos cement — sheets, slates, gutters, downpipes, flue pipes. Work on these is non-licensed, and not even notifiable, provided the material is handled carefully and removed without breaking up. It becomes notifiable where it will be substantially damaged or broken up. So the claim that asbestos cement always needs a licensed contractor is not correct.
Asbestos insulating board — a different and higher-risk material. Here the position is the reverse: most removal is licensed work, and only minor tasks fall outside that. The claim that it is fine because it is non-licensed is both wrong and dangerous.
It is not illegal for a householder to remove asbestos cement from their own home — the regulations bind employers and the self-employed at work, and an owner-occupier is not engaged in a work activity. You will see it stated as illegal; that is inaccurate. What HSE actually advises is not to attempt repair or removal without training in non-licensed asbestos work, which is a different statement and a better one to act on.
Asbestos waste cannot go in an ordinary skip. It has to be double-wrapped and labelled, carried in a sealed or lockable container, moved by a registered waste carrier and taken to a licensed disposal site. For small quantities many local authorities accept asbestos at household waste sites, but the arrangements and limits vary between councils — check with Cheshire West and Chester Council rather than assuming.
Once everything is off, the roof structure is exposed — the only opportunity anyone will have to look at it properly. Rafters, purlins and wall plates are inspected, with particular attention to the rafter ends where they meet the wall plate, because that is where a long-failing gutter puts water.
Defective timber is replaced or spliced at the rate agreed before work started. Ask to be shown what was found before it is covered again, and ask for photographs — they cost the contractor nothing and they are your only record of a part of your house you will not see again for decades.
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 what is salvageable on your roof, what it is worth and how the rest is disposed of.
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