7 Signs Your Roof Needs Replacing (and 3 That Just Need a Repair)

1. Tiles slipping again and again

One slipped tile after a storm is a cheap repair. Tiles slipping in different places every year is a different story: it usually means the nails or battens underneath have had it, and every tile on the roof is held by the same failing fixings.

2. Daylight or damp in the loft

Go up with a torch on a bright day. Pinpricks of daylight, damp patches on the felt or white salt staining on the chimney breast all mean water is getting past the outer covering. The felt is the roof's last line of defence, and once it tears or perishes, the next stop is your ceilings.

3. The felt is brittle, torn or missing

On roofs from the 1960s to the 1980s the original bitumen felt is often past its life even when the tiles are fine. If it crumbles when touched or hangs in strips between rafters, the roof is running without its safety net. This is the single most common reason we replace roofs that look acceptable from the street.

4. A sagging ridge or bowed slopes

Stand across the road and sight along the ridge. A dip or a visible bow in the slope can mean timbers are carrying more moisture than they should, or were undersized to begin with. Not every wave means disaster, older roofs move, but it always deserves a proper look rather than guesswork.

5. Repairs are becoming an annual event

Three or four £600 repairs a year is £2,000 spent buying months, not years. When the calls become a pattern, compare the running total against the cost of a replacement. Spending once is nearly always cheaper than spending forever.

6. Moss is hiding the real condition

Moss itself is mostly cosmetic, but a thick blanket of it holds water against the tiles through every freeze and thaw, and it hides cracked and delaminating tiles from view. If the moss has never been off, nobody actually knows what the roof underneath looks like. Start with roof cleaning and moss removal and an honest condition report.

7. The neighbours are all re-roofing

Streets get built together and roofs age together. When the same builder covered the whole road in the same year with the same materials, three neighbours re-roofing is real information about what is coming. It is also the cheapest time to do yours: scaffolders and suppliers are already on the street.