How to choose a roofer, and the questions that actually tell you something

The questions that sound sensible but tell you nothing

Before the useful checks, it is worth clearing out the ones people rely on that carry almost no information.

• How long have you been trading? A confident answer costs nothing to give and cannot be checked on your doorstep. Check it yourself.
• Are you insured? Everybody says yes. What discriminates is seeing the certificate, and whether it is in date, the right type and in the right name.
• Are you accredited? Logos on a van are printed, not earned.
• Do you guarantee your work? Everybody says yes. Guarantee is not a defined term, and one from a firm that dissolves is worth nothing.
• Can you start next week? Availability is not a quality signal. The best local firms are usually the least available.

None of those is a wrong question. They just get the same answer from every firm, good or bad, so they separate nobody. What follows does.

Step two: the written quote

A price scribbled on a card is not a quote. What you want is a document a stranger could read and understand exactly what is being done, and for how much.

• The scope in plain terms. Which roof, which slopes, what is being removed and what is being left.
• The actual materials, named. Concrete tiles is not a specification. Underlay, battens, ridge system, flashing and fixings should all be identified, and lead specified by code.
• Scaffolding: included or not. One of the biggest line items and the thing most often left out of a cheap quote.
• Waste removal and making good. Skips, tip charges and the state the site will be left in.
• What happens if rot is found. Nobody knows the condition of the battens and timbers until the covering is off. A good quote says what is included and gives a rate for extra timber. One that is silent is not cheaper, it is unfinished.
• The price, with VAT stated. Figures presented excluding VAT look twenty per cent cheaper than they are.
• Timescale and payment terms. Start date, rough duration, and when money falls due.

Compare quotes line by line rather than by total. Three quotes for a re-roof that differ by thousands are usually three different jobs, and the cheapest is frequently the one with no scaffold and no timber allowance in it. Sense-check the totals against our guide ranges and the roof repair cost guide. A number well below the range deserves as much suspicion as one well above it.

Step four: deposits, payment and references

What is normal

• For a small repair, nothing up front. You pay on completion.
• For a larger job, a deposit covering materials ordered specifically for you, commonly ten to twenty-five per cent, explained in terms of what it buys.
• For a big job, staged payments tied to completed stages, with a final payment held back until you have seen the finished work.
• Payment by bank transfer or card to a named business account, against an invoice.

What is not

• A large deposit demanded before anything has been ordered, particularly in cash.
• Full payment up front. Never necessary on domestic roofing.
• Cash only, or a discount that exists only if you pay cash. It removes your paper trail and your comeback.
• Payment into a personal account in a different name from the business.
• Escalating demands mid-job, where more money is needed before work continues on something already quoted.

Paying part of a large job by credit card can give you additional protection through the card provider above a certain value, which is usually worth more than any card fee.

References that are worth taking

Ask for two, for similar jobs done nearby in the last year or two. Then actually contact them, and if you can, drive past and look at the roof from the road.

The useful questions are not whether they were happy. They are: did the final price match the quote, did the firm turn up when it said it would, what happened when something unexpected came up, and did you have to chase anybody afterwards.

A firm that cannot produce two recent local references for your type of work has either not done much of it or not done it well. Twenty years of concrete tile experience does not qualify somebody for a Collyweston stone slate roof, and a firm that mostly does flat roofing is not automatically right for tiling and slating.

Why the cheapest quote is often the wrong one

It would be easy for a site funded by roofing firms to tell you expensive means good. That is not the argument. Price differences in roofing are almost always explainable, and a buyer who understands them decides better than one who sorts by total.

Legitimate reasons one quote is higher

• Scaffolding is included. Often the single largest line, and a mid-terrace with awkward rear access costs more to scaffold than a detached house on an open plot with the same roof area.
• A realistic timber allowance. A firm that has priced for some battens and a length of wall plate has priced for reality. The one that has not will find it once the tiles are off and ask you for more.
• Better materials. Underlay, battens, fixings, ridge systems and lead codes vary enormously in price, and almost none of it is visible once the job is finished.
• A dry ridge system rather than mortar. Dearer up front, mechanically fixed, and far more resistant to wind uplift, which matters on an exposed fen-edge site.
• Full stripping and disposal. Skips and tip charges are real money, and covering over an existing roof is a corner being cut.
• A real business behind it. Employed labour, employers' liability, vehicles and someone who comes back when there is a problem all cost money that a man with a ladder does not carry.
• VAT. A VAT-registered firm's quote looks twenty per cent worse than an unregistered one for identical work.

What a suspiciously low quote usually means

• No scaffolding, or scaffolding for you to arrange and pay for later.
• No allowance for timber, so a variation is already on its way.
• Cheaper underlay, fewer fixings, mortar where a mechanical fixing belongs, or the existing covering left in place under the new one.
• No VAT because the work is off the books, which also means no invoice, no guarantee and no comeback.
• A price designed to win the job, with the real number arriving once the roof is open and you have no options.

The right quote is usually neither the highest nor the lowest. It is the one where you can see what you are paying for, line by line, and where the firm checks out. Our guide ranges give you that reference point before the first number lands, and if a quote through us sits well outside them, tell us. For emergency work, where the pressure to decide fast is highest, read emergency roofing first.