Who to hire for broken or slipped roof tiles

Short answer

A roofer. Individual broken tiles are a quick replacement if matching tiles are available; the bigger and more common job on an older tiled roof is re-bedding and re-pointing the ridge capping, which is where most tile roofs actually fail.

Soon, not tonightIt will not usually get cheaper by waiting, and it is rarely worth an after-hours rate.

When it is someone else

Calling the wrong trade costs an attendance fee to be told so. These are the cases where this problem belongs to someone other than a Roofer.

  • a roof painter or restoration contractor

    someone is offering a full 'roof restoration'. Restoration is a real service and is also the trade most associated with door-knocking sales, so treat an unsolicited offer differently from one you sought.

What to do before anyone arrives

  1. Photograph from the ground with the best zoom you have, from several angles. You can identify slipped and broken tiles and cracked pointing without going up.
  2. Find out whether spare tiles were left anywhere on the property — under the house, in a shed. Matching a discontinued profile is the main difficulty.
  3. Check inside the roof space for daylight and for water staining on the sarking or the timbers.

What to ask when you book

  • Do you have matching tiles, or will you relocate tiles from a hidden area and put non-matching ones there?
  • Is the ridge capping bedded and pointed, and what is its condition?
  • Is the sarking intact under the tiles? On older roofs there often is none.
  • Are you quoting a repair or a restoration, and what exactly does restoration include?

What changes the price

No dollar figures here: this directory holds no price data and an invented range is worse than none. What follows is what makes one of these jobs cost more than the same job next door, which is the part you can actually use when comparing quotes.

  • Availability of matching tiles.
  • Extent of ridge capping work — re-pointing alone versus re-bedding and re-pointing.
  • Access and pitch.
  • Whether valleys need replacing, which is common on roofs of the age where capping fails.

What you can do yourself

Is this licensed work?

Roofing sits inside building work licensing in most states, with monetary thresholds that vary.

There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state the work is happening in.

Licensing thresholds and certificate requirements differ by state and change with amending regulation, so this page describes the mechanism rather than quoting a figure. The regulator’s own page is the current answer.

Common questions

Who should I hire for broken or slipped roof tiles
A roofer. Individual broken tiles are a quick replacement if matching tiles are available; the bigger and more common job on an older tiled roof is re-bedding and re-pointing the ridge capping, which is where most tile roofs actually fail.
What is re-bedding and re-pointing a roof?
The ridge capping on a tiled roof sits on a bed of mortar and is sealed along its edge with pointing. The bedding is structural and the pointing is weatherproofing. Re-pointing replaces the flexible sealing compound; re-bedding takes the capping off and re-lays it. Re-pointing over failed bedding is the classic corner cut, and it looks identical from the ground for about two years.
Is a roof restoration worth it?
On a sound tiled roof with failed pointing and tired but intact tiles, it is real work with a real benefit. What it does not do is extend the life of a roof whose tiles have delaminated or whose battens have gone — and that is exactly the roof most often sold a restoration. Ask what is being fixed rather than what is being coated.

Find a Roofer near you

1,369 roofers in this directory, ranked on published evidence rather than on advertising.

Who to hire for

General information about who does what, not advice about your specific job. Licensing, consumer law and council rules differ by state and change; the regulator for your state is the current source. More guides to hiring a tradesperson.