New roofs & complete re-roofing in Macclesfield

A re-roof is the largest job most houses ever have done to them, and the honest starting point is that a lot of houses do not need one yet. A roof with sound timbers, sound battens and a handful of slipped slates wants repairing. A roof that is shedding slates from several places at once because the nails have rusted through wants stripping — patching it is money spent twice.

The work itself is a strip back to the rafters, then a rebuild: new treated battens to the right gauge, a breathable membrane, fixings specified for the exposure of the site, and a proper ventilation path at eaves and ridge. Sound slates and tiles are often set aside and re-laid, which is normal practice and, on a slate roof in a conservation area, frequently the right answer.

Two rules bite on a job this size. Going past 25% of the roof covering makes it notifiable under Part L of the Building Regulations, with a duty to insulate the roof to current standards where that is feasible — so it either goes through Cheshire East Building Control or through a roofer registered under a Competent Person Scheme who can self-certify it. Keep the certificate: it is what a buyer's solicitor asks for.

And access has to be in the quote. A full strip needs a scaffold, and on a terrace built against the pavement edge that scaffold stands on the highway and needs a licence from the council. A re-roof quote with no scaffold line on it is not a cheaper quote — it is an incomplete one.