Pitched roof replacement in Wylde Green

The bay-fronted semis that make up most of Wylde Green went up between about 1925 and 1938 and they were built properly. Hipped main roof, clay plain tile or Rosemary, generous timbers. Ninety years on, the ones that were looked after are still sound, and a good proportion of the re-roof enquiries we get from these streets are for roofs that do not need replacing — they need the hips re-bedded, the bay lead sorted and the fascias done. We say so, and we lose the job, and we are fine with that.

When one genuinely is due, the decision that matters is the covering, and it is more consequential here than anywhere else on our patch. These streets are visually consistent. Whole runs of houses still wear their original clay, and clay ages in a way concrete does not — it weathers and softens and picks up lichen, while concrete fades to a flat grey and stays there. Put a concrete re-roof on one of these houses and it is visible from three doors down, in both directions, for the rest of the building's life.

We will do either. Concrete is cheaper and it is not a bad roof, and if that is where the budget is then that is a perfectly reasonable decision honestly made. But we are going to make you look at the street first, because it is the one part of this job you cannot undo, and because plenty of people have told us afterwards that nobody mentioned it. There is also a weight question worth asking in the same breath: if your rafters were cut for clay plain tile, dropping heavier concrete on them is not automatically free.