Roofer or builder: who should do your roof work?

A roofer works on the outer skin of a building and the timbers that carry it. That means stripping and re-laying slates or tiles, renewing battens and underlay, re-bedding or dry-fixing the ridge and hip tiles, and making good the verge, the sloping edge where the roof finishes at a gable. It also means leadwork such as flashings and valley linings, flat roofs in EPDM, GRP or felt, and the gutters, fascias and soffits along the eaves.

The skill sits in details that look trivial from the pavement. A lead soaker cut a few centimetres short, or an underlay lapped the wrong way round, stays hidden for years and then lets water through. A trade that lays roofs every week learns where those details go wrong, which a general builder doing the odd roof a year rarely has the chance to do.

Repairs follow the same logic. Spotting a lifted tile, a cracked valley lining or a failing ridge goes quickest for a person who knows where roofs give up, and our roof repairs begin with pictures taken up on the slope itself, so you see what the roofer sees.

A builder takes the lead once the job touches walls, floors, openings or whatever carries the roof. New brickwork, a rebuilt gable, a lintel over a widened opening, an extension shell and a loft conversion frame are all builder's work, usually with an engineer's calculations behind them.

A bricklayer is the right person for masonry that happens to stand above the roofline. A stack that has leaned, or lost its upper courses to frost, needs bricks cut out and laid fresh before any roofer can flash it. Repointing a sound stack is a close call, since roofers and bricklayers both do it, but rebuilding is the bricklayer's craft.

Removing the chimney breast in a living room or bedroom is builder's work as well. Building Regulations approval always applies to that, according to the Planning Portal, and a structural engineer's opinion comes first. When the wall is shared with next door, a party wall notice may also be needed, which our page on party wall notices for roof work explains.

Chimneys are the plainest overlap. The brickwork is masonry, the mortar crown is plasterer's or bricklayer's territory, and the flashings and back gutter round the base are leadwork. Very few firms do every part equally well, so decide early who leads. If the stack must be rebuilt, the bricklayer goes first and the roofer flashes it afterwards. If the stack is sound and only the lead has gone, the roofer can handle it alone. Our chimney rebuild page covers the point at which a stack has gone beyond repair.

Extensions are the second overlap. The builder forms the walls and roof frame, then a roofer covers it, lays lead where new slope meets old, and hangs the gutters. On a Swindon semi with a rear addition, the seam between the two roofs is the usual leak point, so it pays to have a roofer see that seam before the builder's scaffold comes down.

Dormers sit across the line again. The frame and cheeks are carpentry. The tiling, soakers and lead are roofing. A dormer can also need planning permission, so ask Swindon Borough Council's planning team before you commission one, not after.

Begin with the symptom, not the trade. If water is coming in, ring a roofer. They can make the roof safe, trace where the water enters and say whether the fault is in the covering or in the structure under it. If the inspection turns up cracked brickwork, a bowing wall or rotten structural timber, the roofer will tell you plainly, and you can bring in a builder who starts with proper information.

If you are planning something new, such as an extension, a loft room or a changed roof shape, start with the builder or designer, and bring the roofer in early to talk about the covering and the leadwork. Choices about pitch, valleys and the seam where new roof joins an old wall are cheaper to argue out on a drawing than on a scaffold.

• Leaking, slipping or missing coverings: roofer.
• Gutters, fascias and soffits: roofer.
• Leaning or crumbling brickwork: bricklayer.
• New walls, openings or a roof frame: builder.
• Stack with failed flashings but sound brick: roofer.

Planning permission is rarely required for a straight replacement of the same covering, but a listed building or a street under an Article 4 direction changes that. Building Regulations can apply to re-roofing too, and structural changes bring them in almost every time. Ask whoever you hire who will do the notification, and have the reply in writing. On our jobs we explain the consent position and look after the Building Regulations notification whenever the work is notifiable.

Split jobs also split responsibility. If a builder rebuilds a stack, a separate roofer flashes it and the joint then leaks, each can point at the other. One written quote covering the whole sequence, or one person named to coordinate, closes that gap. We back our roofing with a written 10-year workmanship guarantee, and the paperwork after the survey spells out what it covers.

If your job crosses both trades, send some photographs and a few lines through the enquiry form, ring 01793 626096 or use WhatsApp, and we will say which parts are roofing and which need someone else. The building control page explains who signs off roof work in Swindon, and you can see everything we do from the Skyline Swindon Roofing homepage.