Roof tiles rattling in the wind: should you worry?

Roof tiles should sit still. Every tile hangs from a batten, the timber lath fixed across the rafters, by its nibs, and is kept in place by the courses around it, its own weight and, on most modern roofs, a nail or clip. A rattle means one of those holds has gone and the tile is shifting in the wind.

The cause is not always the tile. Noise can come from a loose ridge or hip, a bargeboard or fascia that has pulled off its fixings, a length of underlay flapping in the loft, or a TV aerial or satellite dish bracket knocking on the slope. You may only hear it from certain wind directions, which is a clue to where it sits.

Whatever the source, a roof that makes noise in a blow has something moving more than it should, and the wind will keep working on it.

Fixings give up slowly. Nails rust through or work out as battens age. Clips, which stop the bottom edge of a tile lifting, can snap. Mortar under ridge and hip tiles cracks with temperature swings and falls away. Tiles also slip when a nail head has corroded, leaving them hanging by little more than friction.

Standards have moved on. BS 5534 was revised in 2014, and a ridge or hip tile now needs a mechanical fixing, whether nail, clip or dry-fix bracket, on top of its bed of mortar, since cement cannot be trusted to hold it down unaided. A roof finished before that change may have plain mortar and little else, so it can loosen sooner in a gale, and a ridge that has been standing for decades is worth a look even if it seems fine.

Pitch matters too. According to Marley, a slope under 30 degrees can see severe suction on its windward side, which is why a low bungalow roof can lose tiles that a steep one would keep.

Think about what could happen next. A loose tile might carry on rattling for years. Or it might slip, crack or slide off in the next strong blow and fall onto whatever is below. A loose ridge tile is more of a concern because there are many of them in a line and they sit higher up.

If you can see slipped tiles, gaps in the courses or pieces of tile on the ground, treat that as a job to book soon. If a storm has already taken tiles, our page on tiles blown off in a storm covers the next steps.

Keep people and parked cars away from the ground beneath a loose section. If it is a chimney pot or stack that seems to move, treat it as a safety matter and keep well back. A local authority's building control team takes reports of dangerous structures, so ring them if you think a stack could come down.

Going up is not necessary to learn more, and a view from the street often tells you plenty. In daylight, step back and sweep your eye along each slope for tiles standing proud of their neighbours, a dark gap where one has slid, or a ridge line that has lost its shape. Binoculars or a camera on full zoom help. Check the lawn and the gutters for fragments.

Walk the perimeter once the wind has dropped and watch for crumbs of ridge mortar or loose pointing at the gables. Indoors, a torch in the loft shows chinks of daylight and any underlay hanging free. Our guide to checking the roof after a storm lists what to look for.

Never climb onto a roof to refix tiles yourself, even a single one. Wet tiles and algae are slippery, and a slip at the eaves can end in a serious injury.

The survey comes first, with every loose or slipped tile photographed, so we can judge how widespread the problem is. If only a handful are involved, the job is to lift them, check the batten, refix them with fresh nails or clips and swap any that are cracked. If a ridge is loose, the cure is to rebed or dry-fix it with mechanical fixings, not add new mortar on top of mortar that has already failed.

If fixings across a whole slope have worn out, you get that verdict too, with pictures, and a view on whether a localised repair is enough or the slope should be refixed throughout. Our recommendation is the minimum that cures the fault, and the photographs show why. Where a few tiles are cracked beyond use, matching replacements are sourced so the slope does not end up looking patched.

Our written price comes once the roof has been surveyed, and it is one figure. Our emergency roof repairs page covers how a roof is made safe first, and roofs that only leak in wind shows what loose tiles can lead to.