New roof costs

[Newhousecrying]

we have a leaking roof. We spoke to a roofer a few months ago (before we knew it was leaking) who told us it’s not worth repairing and we should get a new one. We were hoping it would last us until summer but given how much water ingress there is it’s not looking hopeful. The effect of yesterday’s rain is really clear on the internal wall :(

tomorrow we’ll call around to some roofers for some emergency repairs/ quotes/ ideas.

were planning to ask for quotes for both a new roof now and repairs for now and then do the whole roof in the summer to avoid a big whole roof covering, which we’ve seen on some other houses nearby.

has any one had a new roof recently and what was the cost? We’re in the north west.

Well I’ve had interesting conversations with five roofers over the last 24 hours as they will come out to quote none of them can actually agree what this alleged actual problem is I’ve had quotes from 50 quid to just move a tile to £495 for them to replace the flashing for me. obviously we previously had the 10 grand complete roof replacement and 12 grand for the complete roof replacement as well .

finally a friend of my builder came round yesterday had a really good look over it and said it looks absolutely fine just leave it you don’t need anything doing at all.

given I don’t actually have any leaks whatsoever I’m gonna trust him for now.

but what I’m saying is it is most definitely worth getting three or four quotations the friend of the builder also suggested that if I wanted a whole slate roof replacing that would cost me 6000 so not 10 and definitely not 12.

Definitely get plenty of quotes. My quotes ranged from £18k to £33k for exactly the same tiles!

We had a new roof for a 3 bed semi we let out - cost was around £14000, located NW England

We’ve had a couple of roof quotes and both recommended concrete tiles (due to half the price of slate). I’m not sure what tiles we have at the moment. But I asked about the sagging and the roofer said they put in new batons that are appropriate for the tiles. So thicker battons for concrete.

does that sound sensible? We’re still collecting quotes so haven’t picked a roofer yet

@Newhousecrying a good roofer will put in enough support to prevent the roof sagging with heavier concrete tiles. However, do ask for a sample of the concrete tile they would use compared to a clay or slate tile. Also, ask for examples of houses they’ve re-roofed locally in different finishes. Whilst concrete is cheaper, the tiles are much bigger and have a much thicker profile. This does make a big difference to the look of your roof, especially if you have an older/period property.

@TattiePants thanks. Great idea on getting the samples and asking for recently finished work in those samples. The roofer just gave us the name of a tile style and I’ve looked it up online but it’s hard to picture

It’s not just the batons, it’s the whole structure of the roof that may need reinforcement. All depends, and if they don’t get in the loft to make a more accurate assessment, I’d be wary.

Yes agree with the PP it's not just the battens that would need strengthening it's the whole roof structure.
The damage /bowing would take time to show so you wouldn't notice you had a problem until your roofer is long gone.
Technically if you replace the whole roof with something that will increase the weight of the roof covering by 15% then you need building regulations sign off (&structural calculations) although I suspect that most roofers ignore this and don't tell householders anything about it.

@C4tastrophe we’ve had three roofers quote and none have gone inside the loft.

@wonkylegs thanks. I knew about the building regs for replacing 50% of the structure but not structural calcs

Ours is costing £6200, but he's able to use 80% of the current tiles, just needs re felting and new batoning. Midlands

OP, you have my sympathy. I’m also in the NW and struggling to get a roofer to even come out to quote. We had a kitchen extension done a few years ago (it connects to the garage which was the before) and the builders didn’t do a good job on the roof below the upstairs landing window where it sits at a different angle and where the soil pipe enters. We have had a tarpaulin on it for over a year cos of roofers being flakey and saying theylll come then they don’t bother coming. When they find out we both work FT out of the house so would need an appointment they don’t seem to want to bother with us. They seem to just want to turn up whenever they want, and don’t understand we need a bit of notice to be able to get home from work to meet them!

so now things are really bad and we have had to retry contacting people. And it takes so much time and phone calls and pestering - really annoying when you have the jobs we have. We finally had one bloke round and he’s quoted nearly 5k to do that repair plus replace the flat rooves on top of 2 bay windows. Seems extortionate to me when we want to rebuild our garage and porch at some point so the leaky part might need changing as part of that work)

we can’t get a builder interested in in redoing our garage and porch so are also waiting for that.

is it just us?! We have quite a bit of money sitting there waiting to get these jobs done and it seems like such a hassle getting anyone who isn’t flakey or possibly overcharging.

@CurlyhairedAssassin we’ve had loads of problems getting contractors. I contacted 30 plasterers, only 5 came to quote, and of those we only got 3 quotes

Our tiles are pretty knackered. If we could reuse and lay the same ones I would. :(

I'm also surprised about how cheap some of these quotes are. My mum had her roof replaced years ago and I distinctly

Had mine done last year. Cost £45k. It’s thatched though, so not really relevant to you.

I’m only mentioning it to hopefully help you feel a little better.

Posted too soon. I distinctly remember her saying it would cost £12k. She is South East, in a not tiny but definitely not huge 3 bed semi and that must've been at least 20 years ago.

@Newhousecrying @CurlyhairedAssassin
It's still really hard to get trades and contractors out at the moment to quote. Most of them are still very busy and are concentrating on getting the work they have done rather than looking forward.
I've been tendering for several jobs for clients at the moment and it's so so hard to get quotes even from contractors I've been working with for years. I think clients think I'm not trying but I'm literally chasing for quotes daily for weeks. Even once they've been out to visit they don't seem to be producing quotes, it's worse than it used to be and it's not just local to me as some of my jobs are in a different region and I'm having the same problem with these. I asked about it on a professional support board and apparently everyone is finding it tough on domestic jobs.

We had the same problem with quotes, some roofers were booked for months in advance. Others didn't reply to messages or just said too busy.

@TellMeWhere She was robbed unfortunately :(

I just think there aren’t enough people in skilled trades anymore in this country, especially since Brexit, and especially in certain parts of the country It’s a massive issue. All the decent tradesmen I know of are approaching retirement and are very very fussy about what jobs they take on, not wanting to take on anything that involves extra skill or hassle.

I know of a few who will only do well paid (or over paid) jobs like for schools or councils or tv production companies, or for developers, especially here in my city where building in the city centre are being thrown up left right and centre.. No-one wants to do domestic work for home owners anymore.

none of our young people want to go into a job which doesn’t involve sitting in front of a screen in the warmth inside. I don’t really blame them, who would want to do a physical job sitting up high in the cold and wind hammering things and getting splinters etc?

It seems that other European countries seem to have a better choice of skilled strong tradesmen than our soft lads here.

I know, it’s awful. Who has time for organising that shit if they work full time? I don’t even get a proper dinner so it’s not like I can ring in my lunch break either.

1920s bungalow in NW, hipped roof. Rebatten, felt (or whtever they call the breathable stuff these days) reslate main roof resusing undamaged slates, replace damaged ones with reclaimed to match.
Add pitched roof to flat roofed single storey extension, hipped to main roof. This was like yours, low. We're having it sloped up close to the ridge inside and 2 veluxes. Reclaimed slate and ridge tiles to match existing. All new gutters/fascias/downpipes. 4 new veluxes, two of which electric (adds a lot to the cost).
20 grand.
Plus all the plastering and insulation for the extension roof, not costed yet.
Not the cheapest roofer, but a very good one.