New Slate Roofs

The longest-lived roof covering there is — natural and man-made slate.

Nothing on a roof outlasts natural slate. A well-fixed slate roof is a century covering — the slates on many Victorian terraces are still the originals, outliving several generations of the nails that hold them. If you own a slate-roofed house, keeping it slated is almost always the right decision for the building and its value.

"Slate" spans a real range. Welsh slate is the benchmark — dense, stable and famously long-lived, at a premium price. Good Spanish slate delivers most of the performance at a significantly friendlier cost and is what most new UK slate roofs use; grading and sourcing matter, because poor slate delaminates young. Man-made fibre-cement slates give the appearance at the lowest cost with a 30-to-40-year life — a legitimate choice, honestly presented as what it is.

Slate roofs live and die by fixing: correctly sized slates for the pitch, holed and double-nailed with the right nails, on the right laps. The traditional failure of old slate roofs — "nail sickness" — is the fixings rusting away under perfect slates, which is why re-slating so often reuses the originals.

Benefits

Why choose New Slate Roofs

Natural slate graded and sourced properly — no delaminating imports
Existing slates reused where sound (common and economical)
Copper or stainless fixings — the nails last like the slate
Correct sizing, laps and pitch calculations
Man-made options priced honestly alongside natural

Features

What's included

Welsh and Spanish natural slate
Fibre-cement slate systems
Re-slating using salvaged originals
Full lead valley and flashing detailing
Heritage and conservation-sensitive work

Typical lifespan

80–100+ years (natural)

Repair options

Repair or replace

Slipped or broken slates on an otherwise sound roof are a repair, refixed with hooks or tingles. Widespread slips with slates intact usually mean nail sickness — the classic case for stripping, salvaging the good slates and re-fixing them on new battens and membrane, which costs less than new slate throughout. Background reading: our slate roofs guide.

Common questions

Frequently asked

Is Spanish slate as good as Welsh? +

Good Spanish slate is excellent — the majority of new UK slate roofs use it, and first-grade material will do 75+ years. The catch is the range on the market: cheap ungraded slate can fail young. Welsh remains the longevity benchmark at roughly two to three times the material cost. We source graded slate and will show you exactly what's being quoted.

Can my old slates be reused? +

Very often, yes — sound slate outlives its fixings, so re-slating commonly strips the roof, grades the slates, and re-lays the good ones (typically 60–80%) topped up with matching reclaimed or new. It's economical and keeps the roof's weathered character.

Why is slate more expensive to install than tile? +

The material costs more, and the labour is slower — each slate is individually holed, nailed and coursed, where interlocking tiles hang and clip at several times the pace. What you buy for that is lifespan: per year of service, good slate is arguably the cheapest roof there is.