How to Tell If You Need a New Roof or Just a Repair

Most roofs that look finished from the ground still have years left and need a repair, not a replacement. You need a new roof when the covering has reached the end of its life, the underlay or membrane has failed, and slipped tiles keep coming back however often they are fixed. You need a repair when the timbers and membrane are sound and the problem is one area. The only way to be sure is to look at the roof properly, which is what a drone survey is for.

The problem with deciding from the ground

You cannot see the things that matter from your garden. The membrane under the tiles, the state of the battens, the timbers, and the flashing around the chimney are all hidden, so from below you are guessing, and so is anyone who quotes without getting up there or flying it. This is why people end up with three quotes that disagree completely. One says repair, one says re-roof, and there is no way to tell who is right, because none of them has shown you the actual roof.

Signs a repair will do

- The roof is generally sound and the problem is in one place, such as a patch of slipped tiles or a single failed flashing. - The tiles or slates elsewhere are sitting flat and firm, not lifting, cupping or delaminating. - There is no sign of the underlay having failed, and the leak traces back to an obvious single cause. - The roof has had few problems until now, and this is the first real issue rather than the latest in a run of them.

Signs you are past repairing

- You are fixing slipped tiles every winter and they keep coming back in a different spot. - The covering is at or beyond its expected life, and old torching or a perished membrane is letting water and debris through. - Several tiles or slates are cracked, porous or delaminating, not just slipped, which means the material itself is going rather than a fixing failing. - There is sagging in the roof line, or damp showing in more than one place inside. - The lead and the mortar work across the roof are tired, not just at one chimney.

Why firms disagree, and how to settle it

A repair is a smaller job than a re-roof, so an honest firm should be happy to quote the smaller one when the roof allows it. If everyone who looks at your roof jumps straight to a full replacement, that is worth questioning. The way to settle it is to see the roof yourself. A drone survey puts the same footage in front of you that the roofer is working from, so when someone says the membrane has failed you can see it has, and when someone says it is one flashing you can see that too.

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