Repair or Replace Your Roof in Llandudno

There is no single right answer — it depends on the extent of the failure, the condition of what sits under the tiles, and the age of the roof against your plans for the property. But the decision is not guesswork. It comes down to three questions, in order.

1. How much of the roof is actually failing?

A slipped slate here and there is a repair. When more than roughly a third of the covering is slipping, cracking or missing across the slopes, tile-by-tile repair becomes a false economy — you pay repeatedly to chase a roof that is failing wholesale. This is the 30% rule of thumb: past that point, replacement is usually the better value.

2. Are the fixings still holding?

On Llandudno's Victorian and Edwardian terraces around Craig-y-Don and the town centre, the commonest reason slates slip is nail sickness — the original iron nails have rusted through after a century. If slates lift by hand across the roof, the fixings have gone, and re-nailing the whole roof (a strip-and-relay) is the real fix, not repeated patching.

3. Is the underlay sound?

This is the one you cannot see from the ground. Tiles can be re-used; the felt beneath them cannot. If the underlay has perished — brittle, torn, letting daylight through in the loft — then patching the outside leaves the real problem in place. A loft inspection settles it.

Different Llandudno stock ages into different decisions:

• Victorian & Edwardian terraces (promenade, Craig-y-Don, town centre) — original Welsh slate on iron nails. The slate itself often has decades left; it is the fixings and underlay that age out. Strip-and-relay reusing 70–85% of the original slate is frequently the best-value answer.
• 1930s semis (West Shore, inland estates) — clay or early concrete tile. Watch the ridge mortar and the underlay; these often need a re-roof around the 80–90 year mark.
• Post-war & 1960s–70s estates — concrete interlocking tile that can suffer nail sickness and tile delamination; assess the fixings and the tiles' surface condition together.
• Flat-roofed extensions — a different calculation entirely: deck condition under the covering decides it, not the tiles.

The smartest way to compare a repair against a replacement is not the headline price — it is cost per remaining year of roof life. A £400 repair that buys two more years on a dying roof costs £200/year. A £9,000 re-roof that lasts 60 years costs £150/year and resets the clock. On a roof near the end of its life, repeated cheap repairs are almost always the most expensive route.

When replacement is oversell — an honest word: if your roof is sound underneath and only has localised damage, a roofer pushing a full re-roof is selling you something you do not need. A good roofer talks you out of the bigger job when the evidence does not support it. We quote the repair where the repair is right, and say so in writing.

When patching is money wasted: equally, paying £300 twice a year to keep a nail-sick roof watertight, while internal damage quietly mounts, is throwing good money after bad. Past a certain point the honest advice is to plan the replacement and stop patching.

The single best thing you can do is get the roof properly surveyed — ideally by someone whose quote does not depend on you choosing the bigger job. A good survey looks at all three layers: the covering condition across every slope, the fixings (do slates lift by hand?), and the underlay from inside the loft. It should come back to you in writing, with photographs, stating plainly which category your roof falls into and why.

Be wary of two things. First, any verdict delivered from the ground without a proper look — nobody can judge underlay condition from the pavement. Second, a re-roof quote with no repair option offered at all; a roofer confident in their diagnosis will happily explain why a repair would not last, rather than simply refusing to price one.

On Llandudno's period and conservation stock, the verdict also has to respect the building: a Victorian villa on the promenade or a listed property needs matching Welsh slate and lime mortar whether you repair or replace, and that shapes both the method and the cost. We survey with all of this in mind, give you the honest category with photographs, and quote the option the evidence supports — not the most expensive one.

If you are buying or selling, a repair-or-replace survey before you commit is some of the best money you can spend: it turns a vague “the roof looks old” into a specific, costed decision you can plan around. Call 01492 339 101 for a free, no-obligation survey and a straight answer.