New roof on a standard 1930s semi - are all replacement tiles basically as good as each other?

[SwedishEdith]

Had a decent quote for this with these tiles. Are they all much of a muchness?

yep!

Just got our 1930s semi redone. Salvaged as many of the original slates as possible so only neded 400 extra bought from salvage. It looks amazing and saved us a fortune.

There are other colours. What is on the roof now? If it’s slate, some of the old slate could still be usable (not enough for a whole house though) so you could ask if it will be reused.?

Cross posted with Chicksy! The modern tiles might be easier for your roofer to use than slate, and your roofer could use some of your old tiles for another client that does want them.

We had our house reroofed and purchased tiles for the main roof. The salvaged ones from the main roof were used on the extension. Broken etc ones had to go to landfill.

If it's clay tiles on your roof and you are replacing with concrete the weight difference can be huge. You might need structural support adding. They aren't all much of a muchness.

Best to stick with like for like if you can?

Concrete ones weather horribly too.

In an old house (1930s ex council) when the roof came to the end of its life, we just replaced the clay tiles with larger concrete ones. Looked arguably better, & was around half the price of replacement clay tiles. Standard purlin/hip end construction for the time & no issues with the extra weight.

As a matter of interest what is the lifespan of a roof? Does it have the original 1930s roof? And what does a new roof cost?

@boph. Our 1930s house had original roof. Main issue was rusting on nails so didn't have strength for holding the slates. Lots of cracked slates. We salvaged a lot of the originals so only had to buy 400 bringing cost down. Replaced laths, new ridges and felt plus 12 man days to fit. Other fixes going on at same time but I would say roof was less than £4000 of total bill.

Tiles on now are like these. Our house isn't as fancy as that, just standard apex roof but those red tiles.

I've heard about the weight thing before but I'd say 50%+ of road now has a replacement roof and they're usually these ones.

As a PP said. Be careful if the weight. My aunt lives in a Victorian terrace. The houses opposite were re roofed with tiles that were too heavy and the front walls bowed and very nearly collapsed.

They look like clay plain tiles in that photo (sometimes called rosemary tiles).

Concrete will be a lot heavier- a decent builder will put in (and charge!) for additional roof timbers to support the weight. Others won't, but by the time it sags (10 years later) there is no come back.

I'd stick to clay. They are easily available and it's a more environmentally friendly material, plus in keeping with the age of the house. Clay tiles might be more expensive per tile but you don't need the roof strengthening so that should save on cost.

DS recently bought a former council house built in late 1950s. It has the original roof as do all the others now in private ownership but those still owned by the LA have new roofs. The originals are a dark grey and all the new ones are terracotta. The survey said the roof was sound but I wondered why the LA had replaced all theirs.

Thanks all, will look into clay replacements then.