How a roof job runs

The useful thing is not to name the problem — that is our job — but to describe what you observe: where the stain is, when it appears, whether it grows, after what kind of rain. A stain that only shows in a westerly says something quite different from a permanent one.

Photographs help enormously, even taken from the ground. They save a wasted visit, and they mean turning up with the right kit rather than coming back.

A roof cannot be diagnosed from ground level. We go up, lift tiles, and look underneath: that is where the real state of the deck shows, and often where the cause is — several metres from where the water finally appears inside.

Water almost never falls directly below where it got in. It runs along a rafter, crosses the loft floor, and comes out where it can. A stain in the middle of a room may start at a chimney flashing.

A roofing quote must say three things: what comes off, what goes back on, and what is replaced. Without that distinction two quotes cannot be compared — one may allow for reusing the old tiles and the other for new ones, which is a considerable difference.

It must also name what is not included. A roof frame can only be judged once it is uncovered: an honest quote states what happens if the deck turns out to be damaged, rather than raising the subject mid-job.

An open roof cannot wait for rain. A job is therefore set against a weather window, and that window can move by a few days. In the Aude it is the tramontane as much as the rain that governs: you do not strip a covering in a strong wind.

Access is settled at the same time: where the scaffold goes, how the skip gets in, whether the commune must authorise occupying the public road.

The scaffold goes up before anything else. It is not a convenience: it is what makes safe working possible and, incidentally, what allows old tiles to be brought down rather than thrown — which is what makes reusing them possible at all.

The surroundings are protected: planting, terrace, conservatory, and the route for the skip. This is when the house changes appearance; it is not yet open.

Tiles are taken off by hand, course by course, and sorted into three piles: those going back on the roof, those kept as spares elsewhere, and those that are cracked or delaminating. It is slow work, and it is what makes reuse possible.

From here the house is open. This is the first of the three stages that leave it so, and progress is set by how much can be closed again the same evening.

This is the stage no quote can fully anticipate. With the boarding exposed we probe: soft boards, rafter feet rotted under an old leak, a purlin end that has moved. What was invisible from inside the loft comes to light.

It is the only stage where the programme can change. A craftsman shows you what he has found, on site, before carrying on — this is when photographs are taken, not when things are quietly closed up.

Damaged timber is replaced — board by board, never wholesale: what is sound stays. Then the underlay is rolled out, counter battens nailed in line with the rafters, and the tiling battens set to the tile’s gauge.

That setting-out decides everything else: it gives the courses their headlap and their alignment. Correct battening is visible from the street ten years later.

The tiles go back up. Sound old tiles are relaid first, and preferably on the slopes visible from the street: they carry the patina, and no new tile imitates it. New tiles make up the shortfall, ideally on the rear slope.

The house is closed again. From here, a shower is no longer a problem.

The ridge is closed, chimney flashings are redone, the rainwater goods are connected. These are the awkward parts — statistically where most roof leaks are — and they come last because they sit over everything else.

Then it is cleaned: gutters flushed, ground cleared, scaffold struck. Handover happens together, on site, and that is the moment for any remaining questions.