If you want to know exactly what happens when a new pitched roof goes on a house in Sturmer - from the first assessment right through to the crew leaving site - this page walks you through every stage.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
A new roof is a significant job. Scaffolding goes up, a skip arrives, the existing covering comes off and your home is open to the sky for a period. Knowing what happens at each stage, in what order and why, helps you ask the right questions before you accept a quote and keeps you informed while the work is underway. We carry out new pitched roof installations in Sturmer and across the Haverhill area, covering villages including Steeple Bumpstead, Withersfield, Kedington, Poslingford, Stoke by Clare, Clare, Ridgewell, Castle Camps and Great Sampford.
Before any price can be accurate, the roof needs to be assessed properly. That means getting up to inspect the existing covering, looking at the underlay and batten condition, and going into the loft to check the structural timbers. A price given without a loft inspection is likely to change once work begins and hidden problems are found.
At this stage, the roofer should be looking at:
If anything unexpected comes up once work starts - rotted timber that wasn't visible at assessment, for example - a good roofer tells you before carrying out additional work, not after.
Safe access is not optional on any pitched roof job. On a standard two-storey house, scaffolding will typically be erected around the affected elevations before any roofing work begins. On a single-storey extension or outbuilding, a smaller scaffold or tower may be sufficient.
Scaffolding is generally erected by a specialist scaffolding contractor rather than the roofing crew. It should be inspected before the roofers work from it. The scaffold also provides a safe landing zone if tiles or debris fall during stripping - which is why it should never be removed before the roof is watertight and complete.
On a terraced or semi-detached property in Sturmer or nearby villages, neighbours should be given advance notice if scaffolding will need to cross or adjoin their boundary. It's worth discussing this with the roofer at quotation stage so access is planned properly.
The existing tiles, battens and underlay are stripped back to the bare rafters. This is usually the noisiest and messiest stage of the job. Tiles are passed or lowered to ground level and loaded into a skip - mixing tiles with other waste makes them harder to dispose of, so a dedicated roof skip or separate load is standard on a tidy job.
As stripping proceeds, the condition of the structural timbers becomes visible in full. Any rafters showing soft spots, splits or decay are marked for repair or replacement before the new covering goes on. It is far cheaper to deal with a rotten rafter during this window than to strip the roof again later.
At this stage, the roof is covered with temporary waterproofing sheets if the job cannot be completed in one session. On most standard houses in Sturmer and the nearby area, stripping and re-covering the main roof can be done within a few days in settled weather, but larger roofs, complex hip details or properties with multiple valleys take longer.
Once the structure is exposed and any repairs have been made, the new underlay goes on. Modern breathable membrane underlay is the standard specification for new roofs - it allows moisture vapour from inside the loft to escape while preventing wind-driven rain or snow from getting through. It is fixed horizontally across the rafters, starting from the eaves, with each course overlapping the one below by the minimum required amount.
The underlay alone does not make the roof watertight - tiles and battens still need to go on - but it is the secondary line of defence when a tile cracks or lifts. On any re-roof, the underlay should always be replaced. Leaving old bitumen felt in place and tiling over it is not acceptable practice on a new roof installation.
Treated softwood roofing battens are fixed horizontally across the rafters at the correct gauge for the tile being used. The gauge - the distance between each batten - is specific to the tile type and the pitch of the roof. Get it wrong and tiles won't seat correctly, water won't drain as designed, and the ridge course won't align properly.
Batten size also matters. The structural load of the tiles is transferred through the battens to the rafters. Undersized battens flex, and flexing battens eventually crack tiles and allow movement at the nail fixings. A good specification document will state the batten size, timber grade and treatment class, not just the tile type.
Laying starts at the eaves and works upward, tile by tile or slate by slate, course by course. Every tile is fixed to the batten - the number of fixings per tile required by BS 5534 (the British Standard for slating and tiling) depends on the roof pitch and location. Head-nailed or clipped fixings may both be used depending on the tile type.
Hip and valley details are cut and fitted as the laying reaches them. Valleys can be cut close to the tile face or fitted with a lead-lined valley gutter - the right approach depends on the tile type, the pitch and the amount of rainfall the valley needs to handle. On a roof with a complex shape, valleys are one of the most technically demanding parts of the job and should not be rushed.
The ridge is the last course to be laid. Traditional mortar-bedded ridge tiles are still common and entirely appropriate, but dry-fix ridge systems are an alternative that eliminates the need for re-pointing over time as mortar cracks. Both approaches are valid; the choice should be discussed at quotation stage.
All junctions between the roof covering and vertical surfaces - chimney stacks, parapet walls, roof lights, soil pipes, party walls - are finished with lead flashing. Lead is the standard material for UK pitched roofs because of its durability and its ability to be dressed tightly into masonry joints and over tile profiles.
Flashing should be fixed into a chased joint in the brickwork, secured with lead wedges and pointed with a suitable flexible mastic rather than rigid mortar alone. Mortar-only pointing on lead flashing is one of the most common reasons flashings fail and leak within a few years of being fitted.
Once all tiling, flashings and ridge work are complete, the roof should be walked - where pitch and access allow - to check for any cracked tiles, misaligned courses or gaps at the verge and eaves. Tile clippings, pieces of slate and mortar debris on the roof surface should be cleared before the scaffold comes down, because once access is gone, anything left on the roof becomes a future problem.
At ground level, all tile waste, old battens, underlay and packaging are cleared from site. Any areas of the garden or driveway used for access or materials storage should be left as found. A skip should be collected promptly rather than left on the public highway or driveway for weeks.
Before accepting any quote for a new roof in Sturmer, ask these specific questions:
If a roofer can't answer these questions before starting, that's useful information about how the job will be run. Call us to discuss your project and we'll go through the process with you from the start.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
