Most roofs get replaced too early
This is the job on the list with the biggest number attached to it, which is exactly why it gets recommended when it should not be. A roof that looks awful from the road - moss, weathering, a few odd tiles - can be structurally fine and have fifteen years left. A roof that looks tidy can be held together by nothing much at all.
The honest test is in the loft, not from the pavement. Daylight through the felt, felt that tears when you touch it, batten ends that crumble, rafters that are damp near the wall plate - that is a roof at the end of its life. Moss on the tiles is a cleaning job, and often not even that.
Re-covering versus a genuine new roof
Two different jobs that get talked about as one. Re-covering means the timbers stay and everything above them is renewed - felt, battens, fixings, and the tiles either re-laid or replaced. A new roof means the structure itself is being altered or rebuilt. The overwhelming majority of houses around here need the first one, and are quoted for something that sounds like the second.
What I do differently on a coastal job
Fixings, mostly. Inland, standard galvanised nails are fine for decades. Within sight of the water at Herne Bay, Tankerton or Reculver, salt gets into everything and galvanising is a finite defence - so I use stainless or copper on the tile fixings and the clips, and I clip a lot more of the roof than the minimum.
The other change is at the verges and the ridge. Given how the wind arrives here - hard, off open estuary water, from a direction most roofs were not detailed for - I would rather use a dry-fix system at the ridge and verge than rely on mortar bedding. Mortar looks traditional and it works, right up until a dry summer shrinks it and an easterly finds the gap. Dry-fix does not care about either.
Getting a comparable quote
Three quotes for a re-roof can vary enormously and still all be honest, because they are often for different work. Ask every one of them the same four questions and the prices become comparable:
- Is the scaffolding in the price, and for how many weeks?
- New tiles, or my existing ones re-laid? Re-laying is cheaper and often better looking, but expect breakages.
- Dry-fix or mortar at ridge and verge, and what fixings on the tiles?
- Is Building Control notification included, and who is signing it off?
Insulation, and the thing people forget
Because a re-covering is notifiable work, it drags the roof's insulation up to current standards, and that is genuinely worth having rather than a box to tick. The mistake is treating it as insulation alone. Pile more material into a loft without sorting the ventilation and you make the loft colder, damper and more prone to condensation than it was before.
So the ventilation goes in at the same time - at the eaves, and at the ridge where the design needs it. It is the least visible part of the job and one of the few bits that will quietly cause problems for years if it is skipped. Worth asking about specifically when you are comparing quotes, because it rarely appears on them.