Half a new roof? Does it add value?

[Merename]

We have an over 100yr old slate roof. When we bought the home report said in the medium term a replacement is likely to be more expensive than annual repairs of missing slates. Last year we got a few repairs due to damp spots in one bedroom and got a few quotes, around 12k mark. One suggested we could do half the roof, as there’s only ever been issues on that side.

Is half a roof a weird idea?

And does a new roof add value? We are thinking of moving in next few years so not sure if it’s a good investment.

A replacement less expensive I meant!

If you can afford to do it it will add value and make your house easier to sell. 12k seems a lot for 1/2 a roof but i dont know how big your roof is? It would make more sense to do the whole roof particularly as scaffolding costs are high these days so you dont want to pay that twice.

Half roof is popular around here (1890s Yorkshire slate for several streets around us), as we have prevailing winds...

12k is a fuckload for just repairs, I'd imagine a half roof would be cheaper due to being quicker - takes about two days here, smallish houses with simple rooves though.

"Investment" is perhaps the wrong way to think about it. "Keeps the rain out" is my preferred phrase.

Do you need it replacing with new slates?

Our 100years old slate roof they just took the slates off, lined it and put the old slates back on with new nails. Cost about 2k

Sorry I wasn’t too clear - 12k is quotes for a full roof replacement. Half would be £6k and an option to ‘keep the rain out’!! Other option is a few hundred quid every winter on repairs and sell it on for someone else to deal with.

We can afford it, in that we won’t starve, but we don’t have that spare cash sitting about, £6k is probably all we have in savings and DH locums so we need a bit of a safety net, preferably bigger than that, in case he lost work for a while. Unlikely but possible. If we were doing whole roof would probably be a loan. But I agree it would make house easier to sell and also ease worries that unseen damage is being done over time.

Nico I don’t know if we need new slates or not! Good to explore that as an option, thanks

Ahhh righto. I'd go with the occasional repairs, it's not worth doing the complete rebuild unless it gets a lot worse and/or you have the money to hand.