It’s the biggest fork in the road in domestic roofing: patch what’s failing, or strip everything and start again. The price difference is roughly tenfold, so it’s also where trust in your roofer matters most. Here’s how the decision actually gets made when it’s made honestly.
What a repair can genuinely fix
Repairs suit local problems on a fundamentally sound roof: a handful of slipped or cracked tiles, one failed flashing, a leaking valley, storm damage to a specific area, ridge tiles needing re-bedding. If the underlying structure — battens, felt, timbers — is healthy, a proper repair restores the roof completely. Most of the repair work we do falls in the £150–£450 range and is done in a visit.
The signs the roof is telling a bigger story
Repeated repairs in different places is the classic one — each fix works, but a new leak appears elsewhere within months, because the common factor (nail sickness, perished felt, tired battens) is everywhere. Other signals: tiles that crumble at the edges when handled, felt visibly disintegrating in the loft, widespread slipping across a slope, daylight in multiple places. At that point each repair is buying months, not years.
The maths that settles it
We put it plainly for customers: if a roof needs £400 of repairs every winter and a re-roof costs several thousand, the crossover comes fast — and every repair pound is spent on a roof you’ll strip anyway. Conversely, spending thousands to replace a roof with one fixable fault and decades of life left is waste in the other direction. The honest answer comes from evidence: age, fixings condition, felt condition, and the repair history. Our 5 signs guide covers the homeowner-visible version.
The middle option people forget
Partial re-roofing is legitimate where one slope has aged differently — a south-facing slope hammered by sun and weather while the north slope soldiers on, or an extension roof failing independently of the main house. Done with matching materials it’s a proper solution, not a compromise.
Get the verdict in writing
Whichever side of the line your roof sits, the recommendation should come with photos, reasons and a written quote — and if it’s “repair”, you’ve learned something about the roofer you can bank for the day it really is time to re-roof.
Stuck on the fence? Get in touch — free inspection, and we’ll tell you which side of it your roof is actually on.