How Much Does a New Roof Cost in Runcorn?

Most cost guides start with square metres. In Runcorn there is something more useful to start with, because this is one of the few towns where you can date a great deal of the housing to within a few years — and the date tells you more about the likely job than the floor area does.

Runcorn Has a Datable Housing Stock

Runcorn was designated a New Town on 10 April 1964. Runcorn Development Corporation ran the programme until it merged with Warrington's in 1981, and the combined corporation was wound up on 30 September 1989. The population at designation was around 28,500; the masterplan was written for 45,000 rising towards 70,000.

The practical consequence is that a very large share of Runcorn's housing was built inside a twenty-five year window, and every roof from that programme is now somewhere between about 37 and 62 years old.

Alongside it sits the older town, which predates all of this and behaves differently in almost every respect. Our Runcorn page sets out how the two halves differ.

Reading the Cost Off the Decade

The older town — pre-1964

Older roofs, more likely to be slate or clay tile, and far more likely to carry hips, valleys, dormers and more than one chimney stack. Every one of those is a cut line, a lead detail or both, and that is where the labour goes.

These roofs have also usually had decades of patch repairs, and some of that history is only visible once the covering is off. Expect a wider range on the quotation and a clearly stated rate for defective timber.

The early New Town phases — roughly the late 1960s and 1970s

Roofs at the far end of the window, now around fifty to sixty years old. On this stock the covering is often still serviceable and the things underneath it are not. The fixings have had six decades in the same conditions, the battens are undersized by modern standards, and bitumen felt from that era has gone brittle.

So the honest answer here is frequently that a full strip and rebuild is the right job, because nothing that is failing can be renewed without taking the covering off.

The later phases — roughly the 1980s

Roofs in their late thirties to forties. Often genuinely fine, and worth inspecting rather than replacing. If the loft is dry, the underlay is intact and there have been no unexplained failures, a roof of this age can have a long way to go.

Post-corporation development — 1990 onwards

Built to the modern standard, usually with mechanical fixings specified from the start and breathable underlay in the later years. Whole-roof replacement is unusual at this age; individual defects are repairs.

What Else Sets the Figure

• Shape. Hips, valleys, dormers and stacks each add cutting and most need lead. A simple gable roof is the cheapest shape there is to cover.
• The covering you choose, and whether it is the one the roof was framed for.
• The condition of the timbers — the one genuine unknown, because nobody can see through a covering. Ask for the rate before work starts.
• The fixing specification, calculated for the address rather than assumed from habit.
• Access, and whether the scaffold can stand on the plot or needs a footway licence from Halton Borough Council.
• The work that shares the scaffold — chimney repointing, fascias, soffits and guttering. Cheap now, expensive as separate visits later.

Three of those — scaffolding, site set-up and waste disposal — barely change with the size of the roof. They are a large share of a small job and a small share of a big one, which is why a rate per square metre from one house tells you very little about another.

Comparing Quotations

• Which covering, named by manufacturer and range?
• What fixing specification, for this address?
• New battens, or is the figure assuming the existing ones stay?
• New underlay, and dressed into the gutter at the eaves?
• Lead renewed at every junction, or only where it has already failed?
• Ridge and hip mechanically fixed?
• Eaves and ridge ventilation provided?
• Insulation, and to what standard?
• What is the rate for defective timber, and will you be shown it?
• Scaffold in the price, and for how long?
• Who certifies the work, and is that fee included?

Three quotations against the same defined scope can be compared on price. Three against three different scopes cannot, and the cheapest of those is usually the one that assumed the least.

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

New roof installations in Runcorn →
All new roof guides →
New Roof Installations Chester →