Slate replacement

A slate roof usually fails at the nails, not the slates. Natural slate lasts a very long time, but the iron nails that hold it rust through, and slates start slipping one at a time. A few slipped slates are an easy repair: the slate is refitted, or replaced with a matching one, and held with a copper or stainless clip hooked over the batten, since a slate cannot be nailed back in without lifting the ones above it. When slates are slipping across the whole roof, every nail is at the same stage of failure, and the honest answer is to strip and relay. That is also when we replace the felt, which on older roofs is often brittle or missing altogether, and the battens, and add ventilation if the roof has none. Good natural slates can be reused and topped up with reclaimed or new slate of the same size, colour and thickness. On newer houses many slate looking roofs are fibre cement. Those are replaced with fibre cement, and on roofs from before about 2000 they may contain asbestos, so we check before cutting or removing them and handle them accordingly. Matching matters on a visible elevation, so we source slate to suit your roof rather than using whatever is to hand.

Natural or fibre cement?

If you are relaying the roof, the choice matters for the next fifty years. Natural slate costs more but lasts far longer and looks better with age. Fibre cement is lighter and cheaper, with a shorter life. We price both so you can decide on real numbers.