What’s Included in a Professional Roof Inspection? A Full Checklist

A proper roof inspection is a great deal more than someone squinting up from the pavement. Done correctly it is a structured check of the covering, the junctions, the drainage, the roof space and the roofline — with photographs and a written record at the end. This guide walks through exactly what should be on the checklist, so you know whether the inspection you are paying for is the real thing.

What’s included in a roof inspection? (the short version)

A thorough roof inspection should cover, at minimum:

• Tiles and slates — slipped, cracked, missing or delaminating

• Ridge and hip tiles, and how they are fixed

• Flashings, chimney and abutments

• Valleys and valley linings

• Flat roof sections — splits, blistering, ponding and upstands

• Gutters, downpipes, falls and drainage

• Fascias, soffits and roofline

• Roof penetrations and their seals — vents, aerials, solar mounts

• Ventilation

• The roof space, inspected from the inside

• Moss and debris

• Photographs and a written record

Below is what each of those actually involves — grouped the way a good roofer works through a property.

1. The covering — tiles, slates and ridge

This is the part everyone thinks of as “the roof”, and it is where the obvious defects live.

• Slipped, cracked and missing tiles. Replacing a handful of tiles is one of the cheapest jobs on a roof. Left alone, the same gap lets water onto the battens and felt beneath, and what was a small job becomes a structural one.

• Ridge and hip tiles. Traditionally these were bedded on mortar alone. Mortar cracks and lets go, which is why a ridge tile coming off in a gale is one of the most common storm call-outs there is. Modern practice is to fix them mechanically, and an inspection should tell you which you have and what condition it is in.

• Age and material condition. Older natural slate suffers from nail sickness and delamination; concrete tiles lose their surface and go porous. Both are gradual, and both are easy to miss until they aren’t.

2. The weak points — flashings, valleys and chimneys

Here is the thing most homeowners don’t know: most roofs don’t leak through the tiles. They leak at the junctions. Anywhere two surfaces meet is a weak point, and that is where a good inspection spends its time.

• Flashings and abutments. Where the roof meets a wall — an extension against the house, a dormer cheek — is sealed with flashing. Lead lifts, mortar fillets crack, and cheap mastic repairs fail within a winter or two.

• The chimney. Stack, flaunching, pointing and the flashing around the base. Chimneys are exposed on all sides and are a disproportionately common source of leaks and damp on upstairs walls.

• Valleys. Where two roof slopes meet, everything funnels into one channel. Valleys collect debris, and a blocked or failing valley puts a lot of water into one very specific place.

3. Drainage — gutters, downpipes and roofline

A roof and its drainage are one system. Inspecting the tiles and ignoring the gutters misses half the problem.

• Gutter runs, falls and joints. Whether the water actually gets to the downpipe, or sits in the run.

• Downpipes. Flushed through to confirm they drain rather than just look clear.

• Fascias and soffits. Checked for the soft spots and blown paint that mean rot has already started behind them.

4. From the inside — the roof space

This is the single most useful part of an inspection, and the one most often skipped.

From inside your loft, on a bright day, a roofer can see daylight where there shouldn’t be any, staining on rafters and felt that shows where water has been getting in, sagging timbers, perished or torn felt, condensation, and insulation shoved into the eaves blocking the ventilation path.

A stain on a rafter tells you water has been coming in for months. From the outside, you might never have seen it.

5. Penetrations, solar and ventilation

Finally, the details that get overlooked — and that cause a surprising share of problems.

• Roof penetrations. Anything that goes through your roof is, structurally speaking, a hole in it. Vents, soil pipes, aerial brackets and solar mounting feet all rely on a seal, and seals have a shorter life than roofs do.

• Solar PV. If you have panels, the mounting points, the roof penetrations beneath them and the debris that collects under the array all need checking — alongside the panels themselves. Our Solar-Shield plan covers exactly this.

• Ventilation. Condensation gets misdiagnosed as a leak constantly. If a roof space cannot breathe, moisture condenses on the underside of the felt and drips — which looks exactly like a leak, and is fixed completely differently.

The bit many “inspections” skip — the written report

Here is how to tell a proper inspection from a token look: you should get photographs and a written record. You cannot see your own roof. That is the entire problem. A report with pictures is the only way you get to make an informed decision rather than take somebody’s word for it.

It matters for a second reason too. Buildings insurance does not cover wear and tear or damage caused by poor maintenance, and insurers expect homeowners to take reasonable care of their property. A dated record of inspection — showing what was found and what was put right — is what makes “neglect” much harder to argue if you ever need to claim.

A record also lets you track your roof year on year, so gradual deterioration gets caught while it is still cheap.

What a roof inspection does not include

To be clear and fair: an inspection is an inspection. It is not a repair. It does not include the cost of replacement tiles, materials or repair work — if we find something that needs fixing, we’ll show you, explain it and quote for it. On our plans your member discount applies to that work: 15% on Gutter Care, 25% on Roof Care, and 50% on Gutter & Roof Combined and Solar-Shield.

Our plans are service and maintenance agreements, not insurance.

Can I do any of this myself?

Some of it, and it is worth doing. From ground level with a pair of binoculars you can spot slipped and missing tiles, a ridge line that has gone wavy, plants growing out of the gutter and staining down the wall. Walk round the whole property, look at every slope, and do it after every serious storm.

What you should not do is go up. Falls from height remain one of the biggest causes of serious injury and death at work in the UK, and “just having a quick look” from a ladder on soft ground is exactly how it happens. Nor will you see what matters most — the condition of a flashing, or what is going on beneath the tiles — without knowing what you are looking at.

How Roof Helpline inspects your roof

Roof Helpline is a proactive roof and gutter care service — the work is carried out by our own insured roofers, and our plans are built around catching problems early rather than reacting to them late.

Every plan starts with an onboarding inspection and roof health check, so we know exactly what we are looking after. After that, your roof gets a scheduled maintenance visit every year, and if an eligible issue comes up during your subscription, our team responds within the terms of your agreement:

• Gutter Care — £9/month: annual gutter clean, annual maintenance visit, 24/7 member support, 15% off repairs.

• Roof Care — £14/month: water ingress prevention, annual maintenance visit, 24/7 emergency call-out and member support, 25% off repairs.

• Gutter & Roof Combined — £19/month (most popular): both of the above, with 50% off repairs.

• Solar-Shield — £29/month: everything in Combined, plus roof penetration seal checks, debris and drainage checks, solar panel maintenance, and an annual professional PV clean and performance check.

Plans run for a 12-month minimum term.

Want the full checklist done properly? Call 0800 135 7663 — Mon–Fri 7am–5pm, and 24/7 for members — or email hello@roof-helpline.co.uk.

Frequently asked questions