What the Work Costs

Everything here is quoted after a survey, and that is not a stalling tactic. Two houses of the same type in the same street can differ by thousands depending on pitch, access and what is found once the covering comes off. What the guides below give you is the range, so you can tell whether a quote is in the right part of the field before anyone comes out.

Spray foam removal

The main factors are the area covered, which type of foam it is, and how well it has bonded. Closed-cell is rigid and takes substantially longer to get off than open-cell, so the same loft area can price very differently. After that it is access, including the size of the hatch and whether the loft can be worked in safely, whether the roof covering has to come off from outside rather than the foam coming off from inside, whether scaffolding is needed, and whether the loft is being re-insulated afterwards.

Roofing

Area is only the start. Shape matters just as much, because hips, valleys, dormers and chimneys all add labour that a simple gable roof does not have. Then there is the covering you choose, the condition of the battens and timbers once the roof is stripped, scaffolding, access for deliveries and skips, and the leadwork. The part nobody can price precisely in advance is what is underneath, which is why a quote should tell you what happens if rotten timber turns up rather than leaving it open.

Smaller work

Repairs are priced by what has failed and how hard it is to reach. Chimney work ranges from repointing to taking a stack down and rebuilding it. Fascias, soffits and guttering are generally priced by the metre and by material.

What a decent quotation should tell you

It should say what is included and what is not, which materials are being used, who is carrying out the work, what happens if something unexpected is found, and roughly how long the job will take. A single figure on a scrap of paper is not a quotation, and a price given over the phone without anyone seeing the property is a number that will change.