Should you repair your own roof?

A fall from a ladder or a roof is among the most serious accidents a home repair can cause, and the risk does not depend on skill. A roof slope is steep, often wet, and covered in moss or loose granules. A ladder rests on gutters that were never built to take the load, and a short slip can end in a long fall onto a hard path or a conservatory roof.

That is why most roof repair is a trade job, done with scaffold or proper access. Scaffold gives a flat platform, edge protection and a safe route up. It also costs money and, if it stands on the pavement, needs a highway licence. A roofer carries the right harness points, ladders tied at the top and a second pair of hands at the foot, none of which a weekend DIYer is likely to have to hand.

The sensible DIY list is short and stays at ground level or on a firm, low platform. You can look over the roof with binoculars from the garden, check the loft with a torch for damp or daylight, clear leaves from a gutter with a long-handled scoop, and refit a loose downpipe bracket on a ground-floor wall. Photograph anything you find, with the date.

Those jobs gather useful evidence without putting you on the roof. Pictures taken from the loft and the garden help a roofer reach a quick diagnosis, and our answer on how to find a roof leak sets out the loft checks in order. A slipped tile you can see from the ground still needs a person with proper access to put right, and jot down which slope it is on and roughly how many courses up from the gutter.

A few roofs will not carry a person at all. HSE treats every asbestos cement roof as fragile, and rooflights and some other sheeting are the same. One step onto the wrong panel can mean a fall through. For a property built or refurbished before 2000, HSE says to assume asbestos is there, and broken asbestos cement gives off fibres that nobody should breathe.

Taking off asbestos cement sheets that are intact, without breaking them, counts as non-licensed work, and if they start to break up the work becomes notifiable. Household asbestos waste needs a consignment note, so it cannot go in an ordinary skip. Where an older garage or shed carries a sheet roof, read our page on whether a garage roof is asbestos before you touch it, and do not climb onto it under any circumstances.

The outcome that costs least is a repair that fixes the right fault the first time. DIY repairs often treat the symptom: sealant round a flashing, paint on a felt split, a tile pasted down where it should be re-fixed. The water finds another way in, and hidden damage grows until a ceiling or a timber shows it.

There are knock-on effects too. A roofer called to a roof already covered in sealant has to clear it first, and the added work and uncertainty can cost more than a straightforward repair would have done. Our answers on roof sealant and bitumen paint look at why those products are stopgaps. If you would like a figure to compare against, the typical ranges are in the national cost guides we quote elsewhere on the site, and a written quote adds your own.

If you want to help, gather the evidence and leave the roof to the person who works on it. Keep a note of when the leak shows and what the weather was doing, take photographs from inside, and put a bowl or sheet under any drip. If a storm caused the damage, ring the insurer before you spend much, and save the receipts for any emergency cover you put up yourself. Pictures taken as soon as the damage is found carry the most weight. Which? also advises photographing the damage before anything is moved.

Then ask for a survey. Our surveyor takes pictures of your roof from safe access and tells you whether it wants mending or renewing, and why. What comes after is a written quote carrying one total, plus the photographs behind it. Birds and bats may be using the roof, and both are protected, which is another reason to leave work above the eaves to someone who checks first. The roof repairs page explains how we work, from the first look to the tidy-up afterwards.