The short answer
A tingle is a thin copper or stainless steel strip fixed to the batten, then folded up across the lower edge of a slate to pin it. It repairs a slipped slate without lifting the courses around it. A tingle can hold for many years on sound slate, but a run of them across a slope signals failing nails.
What a tingle is and how it works
When a slate slips, its nail has usually snapped or pulled out, and the nail hole is hidden under the slates above. Instead of lifting the whole course to re-nail it, a roofer slides a new slate into the gap and holds it with a tingle. The strip is nailed to the batten under the gap, then turned up against the new slate's lower edge and pressed flat, so the slate cannot slide.
You may also hear tingles called clips or straps, and the repair is sometimes described as "tingling a slate". The slate then looks slightly different from the original, with the strip visible at its bottom edge as a thin line of metal. From the ground it is hard to see, but up close you will spot it.
The method suits a roof whose neighbouring slates are sound and whose trouble is one failed fixing. Our page on slipped slates explains why slates slide.
Copper, stainless steel and lead
The material matters. Copper tingles are traditional, soft enough to bend by hand and resistant to corrosion. Stainless steel strips are tougher and suit exposed roofs. Lead strips are sometimes used by non-specialists, but lead creeps under its own weight and can leave the slate loose.
The nail that holds the strip to the batten is just as important. A galvanised nail beside a copper strip can set up corrosion, so the nail should match the metal. Clips that are too thin, or too short to grip the slate, slip, and the slate with them.
When you are quoted for a tingle repair, ask what metal is used and whether the nails match. This small detail decides how long the repair holds.
How long a tingle repair holds
How long a tingle lasts depends on the metal, the slate and the exposure, and no one can promise a number of years. A well-fitted copper or stainless strip on a sound slate can hold for years, because it is protected from the weather and carries a light load. The real limit is the fixings around it. If the surrounding slates are held by corroding nails, the roof will go on shedding slates, and a new tingle will only fix the one you see.
Tingles can also fail if the slate they hold is thin or cracked. A slate that is flaking in layers will not hold a strip. Our page on natural and fibre-cement slate explains how the two behave.
If a tingle slips, it is rarely the tingle alone. It usually means the slate was a poor fit, the batten was split or the nail was too short.
What a repair costs
Tingles are not priced one by one in the national guides. MyBuilder's roof repair guide, updated in August 2026, puts minor repairs at £100 to £300, and a handful of tingled slates on a roof reachable by ladder falls into that band. Scaffolding, at around £850 to £1,200 for a standard two-storey house per the same site, can be the largest cost if access is poor. For a closer look at the price of one slate, see our page on the cost of replacing a single slate.
These sums describe the country in general, not your house. When you compare quotes, see which include VAT and scaffolding, as both shift the total. A low-looking figure sometimes leaves one of them out, which only shows once the bill arrives.
If your slates keep slipping, you are paying call-outs for the same fault again and again, while the underlying cause carries on quietly working loose the rest of the slope. It may be cheaper to re-fix the slope than to tingle every slate one by one.
When lots of tingles signal something bigger
One or two tingles on a roof is normal. A roof with tingles scattered across a slope tells a story: the nails are failing and earlier repairers have patched each slipped slate as it appeared. That is the pattern of nail fatigue, and each new slate is a short-term fix. Our page on nail sickness explains it.
Stand back from the house and look up. Clusters of slightly shorter or newer-looking slates, with a thin metal line at their bottom edge, show where tingles have been fitted. If you can count many, the slope is probably due for re-fixing or re-slating, not another patch.
During a survey we sample the nails and report what they show. Re-fixing with new nails and underlay reuses the existing slate, and it is usually less than the cost of a new covering.
Having the work done
A roof needing a handful of tingles gets a handful, with the reason they will hold. A roof needing more gets photographs and a talk through the alternatives, then a written quote.
We stand behind the work for ten years in a written guarantee and clear up before we go. For more on repairs in general, see our slate roof repairs page, and the slate roofing hub for everything we do on slate.
Phone 01793 626096, use WhatsApp or send the form, mentioning how many slates have slipped and how high the roof is. We will talk through access before the survey.