Do I need planning to change the colour of our roof tiles

mutteroo

I need to replace the very leaky roof on my house. We do not live in a conservation area and have a very average 1930's 3 bedroom semi.

Not sure if I want to replace the current roof tiles with clay ones of the same colour as every other house in the street or go for a grey tile which I think would make my house look better.

Also, I have no idea of the costs involved in replacing the roof. I've only had one quote of £9500. I live in the south east.
If anyone can recommend a roofer I'd be a happy girl:T OR does anyone know if I am likely to need planning permission to change the colour of the replacement tiles?

Be gentle with me. I'm a newbie!:o

Nilrem

I would suggest contacting the local planning office, they should be able to tell you if it's ok or not without planning permission.

I'd guess the answer will depend partly on what colour roof tiles your neighbours etc have, I suspect if all the other houses have one colour the planning office may not want you to use another (much the same way if you're building an extension/brick garage they may require you to use similar looking bricks to the existing buildings, even in non conservation areas).

Anyway, it's better to get the answer from the horses mouth as it were (and make a note of the name of the person you talk to, and date/time), than to possibly make a very expensive mistake.

newbie1980

hi i would have thought ur quote is acceptianally high
one would have thought half of that i had my roof done before we moved in and they were looking at £3k back then in 2001
but then again i may be wrong

Cash-Cow_3

You shouldn't need planning permission but you may need building regs depending on what you are changing from and to. Personally, I would not change the colour from what is different to the rest of the street - it could make your house stick out like a sore thumb and devalue it. You are best going for the better quality tiles that more or less match the neighbours.

Anniemacca

If it isn't in a conservation area or listed I don't think it matters what colour you use. There are some "nice" red and blue ones near us!! I would agree that it would probably be best to stick to the consensus colour and get quality.
Also if you have a semi I think it looks better if the whole roof is at least matching in colour. Purely subjective.
I would say that the quote you have had seems ridiculously high.
I guess it all depends on the size of your house and what actually needs doing.

loracan1

If everyone else in your street, including your attached neighbour, has grey tiles, yours isn't going to look better, it'd stick out like a sore thumb - it'd look ok if your immediate neighbour switched theirs too though.

tanith

I agree with some of the others that if you are a semi and your adjoining semi has clay tiles it is going to stick out like a sore thumb if your roof is grey... sorry but I think it'll look about as daft as one of a pair having fake beams and leaded light windows when the other doesn't........ I have one up the road from me and it frankly looks rediculous..

macman

Unless it's a listed building or in a conservation area, you can have whatever colour you wish.

ormus

as above. you can have any color you wish. just as the outside paint of your home.
however, if you do have say purple tiles, itll look stupid.

unless all yer neighbours have purple tiles too.

Leif

I think your problem is that you have a semi, and it'll look a bit like those women that have dark hair apart from a blond streak. It just doesn't look right, to me anyway.

I think a different colour can look okay on a detached property if it is done well. In some places I see some green roofs, and they are nice, in my opinion. I think it is all about quality and fitting in. A nice Victorian terrace with one house with fake stone cladding looks cheap and nasty. Then again cladding is cheap and nasty in my opinion.

vegasvisitor

There's a green one near us on a semi detatched bungalow, I think it's painted though rather than the tiles actually being green themselves. I think it looks awful, would hate to be joined onto someone who done that. Being a bungalow it's also very visible, on a 2 storey house it would be higher and not so much in view.

We have thought about getting ours re-done, I would say the tiles are original (1960s), but when we asked the guy who does our repairs he said ballpark £15k. He's generally quite pessimistic, and I don't know if he was talking about replacing more than just tiles at that price. His prices tend to be sensible, but I was quite shocked. He maybe didn't want to do it either, hence putting us off :rotfl:

I'd be keen to hear true costs of re-tiling though, we're in a 3 bed detatched dormer bungalow, roof has only 2 flat sides if you get what I mean - toblerone shaped rather than the sloping at the two sides too.