The short answer
A fair written roofing quote names the area of roof and what is being done to it, the covering and fittings by product name, whether scaffold, VAT and waste removal are inside the total, an allowance for rotten timber, expected start and finish dates, the payment stages, and the guarantee in writing. If any of those is missing, ask for it before agreeing to anything.
The scope: what is being done, and to which part of the roof
Read the description of the work first. It should say which slopes or sections are covered, whether the job is a repair, a partial re-roof or a full strip, and what comes off. "Re-roof house" is not a scope. "Strip the rear slope and the single-storey extension, renew battens and underlay, re-lay with new tiles, replace the lead valley" is.
Ask whether the roof edges are covered, because the verges, ridge, hips and the lead around chimneys are where a quote tends to go vague. The ridge is the apex of the roof, and a hip is the angled external corner on a hipped design. If neither is mentioned, ask whether they are in or out of the price.
Photographs earn their place here. Ours follows a survey and arrives with pictures of your own slopes, so each phrase can be checked against the roof it describes.
Materials named, not just described
"Good quality slates" tells you nothing. A useful quote names the covering: manufacturer and range for tiles, origin and size for natural slate, the underlay type, how the battens are treated, and what fixings hold everything down. For lead it gives the code, such as Code 4 or Code 5, because thickness decides how long the metal lasts and where it suits. For a flat roof it says whether the covering is EPDM, GRP or felt.
Named materials protect both sides. You can look the product up, set it beside another firm's proposal, and check that what turns up on the drive is what was written down. If the existing roof is Welsh slate or Cotswold stone slate and the quote offers a cheaper lookalike, the difference shows on the page. Our roof lifespans by material page shows why that difference matters over decades rather than seasons.
A quote can name materials and still leave out the small parts that fail first: clips, nails, valley trays and sealants. A line saying fixings are stainless steel or copper, where that is the specification, is a sign that someone has thought it through.
Scaffold, VAT, waste and the costs that go missing
Three costs slip easily out of a headline figure. The first is scaffolding. MyBuilder's scaffolding guide, updated in August 2026, puts a standard two-storey house setup at around £850 to £1,200, so a quote that says nothing about it may be leaving a large sum for later. The second is VAT: several national guides publish prices excluding it, so check whether your total includes it. The third is waste, and the quote should say whether the old materials leave with the crew and the site is swept.
While you are reading, look for the cost of making good. Will the gutters be taken down and refitted if the scaffold needs them out of the way? Who deals with the scaffold licence if scaffold must stand on the public footway? Each answer takes a sentence, and each is worth having on paper.
Remember that the total on the page is what you will pay if the roof matches the survey. The remaining question is what counts as a change, which the next section covers.
Timber allowances and what happens if the roof surprises you
Old roofs hide rotten battens, decayed rafter ends and soft boards beneath the covering. A sensible quote says what has been allowed for and how any extra will be handled. Look for wording that explains that sound timber stays, that rotten timber is replaced if the survey or the strip shows it, and that you will see photographs and agree before additional work begins.
Ask who makes the call. The worst version is open-ended: "extra timber charged as required". The better version says what is included, names who will tell you, and states that nothing extra happens without your agreement. However it is worded, you should never learn about a variation from the final invoice.
Where the timber is old, as on a Victorian terrace that has never been stripped, ask what the allowance covers in metres or boards rather than pounds. It is easier to compare and harder to stretch.
Start and finish, payment stages and the guarantee
A quote should give a start date or a window, an expected duration, and a note that weather can shift both. Working on a roof in poor conditions is unsafe and spoils the finished job, so a careful roofer explains how delays are handled instead of promising the impossible.
Payment stages belong on paper too. Read how much deposit a roofer should ask for before settling the opening figure, and make sure later payments hang on stages of the work, not calendar dates. Signing at home also gives you 14 days to think again, and the cooling-off rule explains how that period works.
Then the guarantee. Our guarantee runs for 10 years, covers workmanship, and is issued on paper; it is not a promise about the whole life of the roof. Whatever any roofer promises, read the wording and see what is actually covered. The difference between insurance-backed and workmanship guarantees is worth understanding first. Where the job alters the weight or structure of the roof, the quote should also say who will notify building control, which our Building Regulations guide explains. For the bigger picture, start from the Skyline Swindon Roofing homepage.