Roofers near you

The ABCB Housing Provisions deal with roof cladding in Part 7: sheet roofing in Part 7.2 and roof tiles and shingles in Part 7.3. Metal sheet roofing is installed to AS 1562.1, roofing tiles are made and fixed to AS 2049 and AS 2050, and sheet roofing must be protected against corrosion. Corrosion is the quiet decider near the coast, where salt spray, the wrong fastener metal and dissimilar metals touching each other will shorten a roof far faster than the weather alone.

Check the register for your own state before you sign anything. In New South Wales you need a contractor licence to carry out, advertise or contract for residential building or trade work above the threshold in the Home Building Act, with unlicensed work carrying substantial penalties, and roof plumbing sits in its own category: fixing, installing, renovating, altering, repairing and maintaining guttering, downpipes, roof flashing and roof coverings. In Queensland the QBCC licenses building work above its threshold, and plumbing and drainage work of any value at all. Victoria registers building practitioners and licenses plumbers by class, with roofing (stormwater) covering roof coverings, roof flashings and the gutters, box gutters and downpipes that carry stormwater away.

Western Australia requires builder registration once builder-work passes the value set for the building class, and the Building Services Board is the registration authority. South Australia requires a building work contractor's licence and publishes a licence register you can search. Ask for the licence number, look it up yourself on the regulator's own register, and check that the class of licence actually covers roof work rather than general handyman work.

LokalMatch is where that search starts. You describe the roofing job once, with the roof type, the storey height and what is going wrong, and matched local roofers and roof plumbers get in touch with you directly. The pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not do roofing work, does not set or quote prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend any business, so confirming the licence, the insurance and the statutory cover is still your job before work begins.

This is the protection with no Canadian equivalent, and it is worth understanding before the deposit leaves your account. In Queensland, most residential building work above the scheme's threshold, expressly including restoring and repairing roofs, must be covered by the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme. The contractor pays the premium, based on the insurable value of the work, and it is built into the contract price. If the contractor is not licensed, the work is not covered.

New South Wales runs the Home Building Compensation Scheme for contracts above its threshold. The principal contractor must take out the cover before starting work or taking any money, including the deposit, and the certificate has to be given to the homeowner. The scheme covers major defects for six years and other losses for two years from completion. Victoria requires domestic building insurance at or above its contract threshold, and the builder must hold the policy and give you the certificate of currency before demanding or receiving any money. South Australia requires building indemnity insurance for building work above its threshold that needs development approval, and only a licensed builder can take out the policy.

Underneath all of that sit the Australian Consumer Law guarantees the ACCC enforces: services must be supplied with acceptable care and skill, must be fit for any purpose you made known, and must be supplied within a reasonable time when no time was agreed. Those guarantees apply to a roof repair whatever the contract says.

The Bureau of Meteorology defines the Australian seasons by calendar months: summer is December, January and February, and winter is June, July and August. So the traditional advice to inspect a roof before winter means booking in autumn, across March to May, not in September. In the northern tropics the four-season model does not really apply and the year splits into a wet season, generally October to April, and a dry season from May to September, which is when roof work up north is realistically scheduled.

Work backwards from the weather that will actually test the roof. In the south east, get repairs done before the cold fronts and hail of late winter and spring. In the north, finish before the wet season and the cyclone season that runs with it. On bushfire prone land, the gutter and roof work should be finished well before the fire season starts in your district, because the same leaf litter that blocks a gutter is what catches an ember.

After a storm the temptation is to get a ladder out. Don't. Safe Work Australia treats construction work with a risk of falling more than two metres as high risk construction work, requiring a safe work method statement, and roof activities such as tiling, roofing restoration and installing solar panels count as construction work. Duty holders must eliminate or minimise the risk of a fall so far as is reasonably practicable. Wet tiles, brittle sheeting and old fibre cement are exactly the surfaces people fall through.

A make-safe visit is the right first call: temporary covering, tarping, clearing debris and stopping water entering, followed by a proper assessment. Photograph everything from the ground before anything is moved if you are likely to make an insurance claim.

If the house was built or renovated before 1990, treat damaged roof sheeting, capping, eaves lining and guttering as possible asbestos cement until someone qualified says otherwise. The Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency is blunt about it: if the material is in good condition, do not disturb or damage it, and never use high-pressure water or any abrasive process such as scrubbing, sanding or grinding on an asbestos cement roof. Engage a licensed asbestos removalist for major work.

Guttering is not decoration. The ABCB's guidance for housing requires overflow measures able to handle a five minute duration rainfall intensity with an annual exceedance probability of one per cent, either continuous, such as a slot along the gutter, or dedicated, such as a rainhead. One downpipe must serve no more than a twelve metre length of gutter and must sit as close as possible to valley gutters. Undersized or blocked guttering pushes water back under the roof edge and into the eaves.

On bushfire prone land, gutter maintenance is fire preparation. The NSW Rural Fire Service asks residents to remove litter from the roof, valleys and gutters ahead of the bush fire season and to fit metal gutter guards, because embers landing in gutter debris are a leading way houses ignite.

If the roof feeds a rainwater tank, it is a drinking water catchment. The Australian Government's enHealth guidance notes that water quality depends on roofing and tank materials, leaves, dust and animal and bird droppings, and that roof catchments used to collect drinking water should not include uncoated lead flashing, with alternative materials used on new roofs and during renovation. The NCC guidance for gutters and downpipes makes the same point about lead in a drinking water catchment.

A competent re-roof starts with two site questions. First, the wind classification: the Housing Provisions point to AS/NZS 1170.2 or AS 4055 for wind actions, and in the cyclonic wind regions the building needs an anchorage system in which the roof is connected through the walls to the footings by a chain of connections, with every connector able to carry the uplift force, because the building is only as strong as its weakest link. Second, bushfire: if the address is on designated bushfire prone land, a Class 1 house and its associated Class 10a buildings and decks must be designed and constructed to reduce the risk of ignition from a bushfire, with the deemed-to-satisfy path being construction to AS 3959 at the bushfire attack level assessed for the site, or the NASH standard for steel framed construction in bushfire areas.

From there the sequence is ordinary: strip and dispose of the old covering, inspect and repair battens and timbers, install or replace sarking, lay and fix the new covering to the manufacturer's and the standard's fixing pattern for that wind classification, then reinstate flashings, valleys, capping, guttering and downpipes. Ask who is doing the roof plumbing and under which licence, because in several states that part of the job is licensed separately from the roofing itself.

Ask too whether a building approval is needed. Replacing a roof covering like for like is often treated as repair or maintenance, but changing the roof form, the pitch, the structure or the material weight is not, and on bushfire prone land or in a heritage area the answer can change again. Your council or a private building surveyor gives the definitive answer for your address.