Buying guide

Repair or Replace, How to Decide

This is the question behind most of the enquiries we take, and the honest answer is that plenty of roofs get replaced years too early and plenty get patched years too long. Below is the test we actually apply on a survey, so you can run most of it yourself before you call anybody.

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Age of covering against its expected life
State of the fixings, nails and battens, not just the tiles
Condition of the underlay seen from inside the loft
How many separate repairs in the last five years
How long you intend to stay in the property

The loft test

Go up with a torch on a bright day. Daylight through the underlay, torn or sagging felt, damp rafter ends and mortar dust on the joists all say the roof is tired as a system. A dry, intact underlay under a covering with a few slipped tiles says repair, confidently.

The repair frequency test

One repair in five years is a roof. Three in two years is a roof that is telling you something. When the third call out arrives, ask for the cumulative spend, because it is often a meaningful fraction of a re-roof already.

The holding period test

If you are selling inside a year, a well documented repair with photos may serve you better than a re-roof you will not recoup. If you are staying for a decade, the arithmetic reverses quickly. We will give you the figures both ways and let you decide.

What we will tell you

If your roof has years left, we will say so in writing, and we would rather do the small job now and get the big one in ten years than sell you something you did not need. That is the entire business model and it is why the survey is free.

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Repair or replace, common questions

How old is too old for a repair?+

There is no fixed number, because a fifty year old slate roof with sound nails can be worth repairing and a thirty year old concrete tile roof with rotten battens may not. Age matters less than the state of the fixings.

Will you give me both options in writing?+

Yes. Where a roof sits on the line we quote the repair and the replacement side by side with what each buys you in years, and there is no follow up sales call.

Does a partial re-roof make sense?+

Frequently. Rear elevations weather worse than fronts on many streets, and doing the failed side now is a legitimate way to spread the cost without cutting corners.

Need Roofing Work You Can Rely On?

Contact Stoker Property Solutions for new roofs, flat roofing, repairs and maintenance across Newcastle, Sunderland and the wider North East.

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