It can, it routinely is, and on a roof that has reached nail fatigue it is the only real answer. What people want to know is what actually happens — and whether the original slates come back.
The short answer is yes, and it is one of the commonest jobs on older property in this part of Cheshire. A slate roof is a system of separate components — slates, nails, battens, underlay — and all of them can be stripped off and rebuilt.
The more useful answer is what that involves in practice, because most of the anxiety about replacing a slate roof comes from not knowing what the process looks like: whether the house is left open, what happens to the original slates, and what gets found once the covering is off.
It is worth understanding, because it explains why patching stops working. Slate itself is remarkably durable — good natural slate outlasts the people who commission it. What does not last is everything holding it on.
Nails corrode. Every nail on a roof is the same age and sits in the same conditions, so they degrade at broadly the same rate and reach the end of their working life at roughly the same time. The result is slates beginning to slip in ones and twos, in unrelated places, with no storm to explain them. This is nail fatigue, and once it is general there is no repair that addresses it — the slates either side of the one you refix are on the same clock.
The battens beneath, and the bitumen felt behind them, follow a similar path. That is why replacing a slate roof is a strip and rebuild rather than a re-covering: the things that failed are underneath the slates.
Erected first, usually a day or two ahead. Where it stands on the public footway a licence is needed from Cheshire West and Chester Council. The scaffold determines how the whole job runs, so it is designed for the property rather than thrown up.
This is the answer to the question everyone asks. The roof is never opened all at once. It is stripped in manageable areas, and each area is rebuilt or sheeted before the next is opened. Any open section is covered at the end of the day and whenever weather requires it. You remain in the house and it remains weathertight.
As they come off, slates are assessed. Sound ones are stacked for re-use; delaminated, cracked or thin ones are discarded. On most old roofs a meaningful proportion will not be worth keeping. Reclaimed slates also need re-holing, because the original nail holes will not line up with new battens at a new gauge.
Whether re-use is worth it depends on why you are doing it. For matching appearance on a period property — particularly inside Frodsham's conservation area — it often is. As a way of reducing cost, it usually is not, because the sorting and handling consume much of the saving.
The one opportunity anyone will get to see the roof frame properly. Rafters, purlins and wall plates are examined, with particular attention to the rafter ends where they sit on the wall plate — the commonest place for rot, because that is where a long-failing gutter deposits water.
Defective timber is replaced or spliced. This should happen at a rate agreed before work started, and you should be shown what was found before it is covered again.
New breathable underlay, correctly lapped and dressed into the gutter. New treated battens at the gauge the slate size and roof pitch require. Slates laid and nailed to specification, with the fixing pattern set by the exposure of the site. New lead to chimneys, abutments and valleys. Ridge and hip finished, normally with a mechanically fixed dry system rather than mortar.
Eaves and ridge ventilation so air can move through the roof space, and insulation brought up to current standards — kept clear of the ventilation path so the two do not work against each other.
Gutters cleared and tested, site cleaned, a magnetic sweep for nails, scaffold struck. Then the paperwork: a building regulations compliance certificate, a written guarantee, and any manufacturer warranty.
So that nothing is a surprise, the common discoveries once a slate roof is off:
None of these is unusual and none is a crisis. They are the reason the roof is being replaced rather than repaired.
If slate goes back on, the structure is being asked to carry what it was designed for and no structural question arises. That is the straightforward case, and in the conservation area it is also the case that raises no planning question — a like-for-like renewal does not materially affect the external appearance of the building, so under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 it is not development at all.
Changing to something else is where the questions start. A concrete tile is heavier than natural slate, so the frame needs assessing. Most tiles need a steeper minimum pitch than slate, so the roof may not suit them. And a visible change of covering inside a conservation area is exactly the kind of change that designation exists to manage — a conversation to have with Cheshire West and Chester Council before ordering materials.
Where the budget will not reach natural slate and the property is not subject to heritage constraint, fibre cement slate is the usual middle path: lighter, cheaper, faster to lay, and much closer to slate in appearance than a concrete tile is.
Re-slating renews a thermal element and engages regulation 23 of the Building Regulations 2010, which requires thermal performance to be improved where technically and economically feasible. The figure for a roof in an existing dwelling under Approved Document L Volume 1 is 0.16 W/(m²K). The work is notified to building control or self-certified under a competent person scheme, and you should be given the certificate when the job is finished.
We will tell you whether the existing slates are worth reclaiming and what the structure underneath is likely to need.
Roof replacement in Frodsham →
All roof replacement guides →
Roof Replacement Cheshire →
Some may. On a strip they are sorted and graded, and the sound ones can be re-used — but expect losses, and expect every reclaimed slate to need re-holing. Where the property is in a conservation area and the appearance needs to be preserved, re-use is often worth the extra handling.
Generally yes, if you are putting slate back. The frame was built for it. The question arises when the covering changes: a concrete tile is heavier than natural slate, and that needs checking rather than assuming.
It is not, in any meaningful sense. A roof is stripped in sections, not all at once, and any open area is sheeted at the end of each day and during bad weather. You stay in the house throughout.
Technically often yes, subject to pitch and structure. In Frodsham's conservation area it is a planning question as well as a technical one, because a visible change of material can materially affect external appearance in a way a like-for-like renewal does not.
Apex Roofing covers Cheshire and the surrounding area for complete roof replacement, new slate and tiled roofs and re-roofing.
Apex Roofing Cheshire · 105 Fence House, Fence Avenue, Macclesfield SK10 1LM
Tell us about the property and the roof in Frodsham, and we will come back to you — usually the same day.
Prefer to talk? Call 07377 461095 · WhatsApp +44 7465 861265 · Email apexroofing14@gmail.com
