How Much Does a New Roof Cost in Crawley? (2026 Price Guide)

Start with the widest view. Checkatrade's roof replacement guide, with its figures dated October 2026, gives around £12,000 for an average three-bedroom semi and approximately £17,000 for a four-bedroom detached house. Its tables also split by roof shape. A hipped roof, which slopes on all four sides, runs from £9,250 to £18,000. A gable-ended roof, which rises to a triangle of wall at each end, runs from £7,000 to £16,250. The publisher marks the table as excluding VAT.

The spread inside each shape is wide for good reason. A roof is priced by its area along the slope, by the covering laid on it and by how hard it is to reach. A steep, awkward roof with many valleys and dormers costs far more to cover than a plain gable in the same material.

Why do hips cost more than gables?

A hip adds sloping edges, and every sloping edge needs its own ridge tile line, cut tiles and a more complicated bit of carpentry underneath. A gable gives you a flat triangle of brickwork and a simple verge instead. More cutting and more fittings mean more time on site, which is what the extra pounds pay for.

What does a per-square-metre rate add?

The same publisher's installation guide gives £120 to £275 per m² for a pitched roof, from plain tiling at £120 to £230 up to clay at £160 to £275. Multiply by the sloping area and you can see the order of magnitude for any roof, though the rate leaves out items such as scaffolding and extra timber.

A terrace has the smallest roof area but often the tightest access. HomeBuilding magazine's cost guide, last updated on 30 September 2025, lists a small terrace in Roman tiles at £6,500 to £10,000. The party walls on either side shape the work. Where your roof meets a neighbour's, the junction is a lead or mortar detail that needs attention, and work next door to an attached property can bring neighbours into the conversation. Our page on re-roofing a terraced house explains how that goes.

What does a semi cost?

The Checkatrade figure of around £12,000 is for an ordinary three-bedroom semi. HomeBuilding is more specific, putting a three-bed semi with a 65 m² roof in plain concrete tiles at between £10,000 and £15,000. Both are national guides, and a semi in Crawley will land where its own area and covering put it. Roof size varies more than people expect between houses with the same number of bedrooms, because garages, porches and side extensions all add slope.

Where does the cost go on a smaller roof?

A surprising share of the bill goes to fixed items that do not shrink with the roof: the scaffold, the skip, the delivery and the labour to strip and clean the site. A terrace roof at half the area does not cost half the price of a semi. If you are comparing a small roof with a larger one, expect the rate per square metre to be a little higher on the small one.

For a worked example, see our post on the cost to re-roof a three-bed semi.

Detached houses sit at the top of the household ranges because the roof is bigger and usually more complicated. Checkatrade gives around £17,000 for a four-bedroom detached. HomeBuilding splits by covering: a detached house with a clay tile roof runs from £12,000 to £18,000, and the same house in Welsh slate from £18,000 to £25,000. The gap between the two shows how much of a price is the covering itself.

How do you price a bungalow?

Bungalows break the bedroom rule. A bungalow has a large roof for its floor space, because the roof covers everything on one level, and the pitch is often shallow. Bungalow roofs vary too much for a single number, so work from area. Measure or ask us to measure the roof, then apply the per-square-metre ranges above to see the scale: the rate times the area is a sound first estimate, and the survey firms it up. Our page on bungalow re-roof cost goes into it in more detail.

Does a low pitch change the price?

It can in either direction. A shallow slope is easier to work on and quicker to cover, which saves labour, but it narrows the choice of tile, because every profile has a minimum pitch. If a roof is below the minimum for the covering you want, the options are a different covering or a membrane system, and either can change the figure.

A fair written price for a full replacement is a single total that covers the work from first scaffold pole to last swept path. Ask what sits inside it, and have every answer put on paper.

Which items belong in the total?

• Access: scaffolding erected, inspected and taken down, with any highway licence arranged.
• Stripping the old covering and taking the waste away.
• New battens and underlay, and the fixings to suit the covering.
• The covering itself, with ridge, hip and verge fittings.
• Flashings and lead where the roof meets walls and chimneys.
• Making good and a clean site at the end.

The difficulty is that cost guides and quotes group these items differently, so a total only makes sense if you know what it includes. Instead of expecting a quote to be cut into parts, ask whether the total covers each point above and whether VAT sits inside it. The standard VAT rate is 20%, and Checkatrade's roof replacement table is stated before VAT, so a headline figure from a guide may rise by a fifth.

What is not usually in the first number?

Rotten timber found once the tiles come off, new fascias and soffits, replacement guttering and anything on the chimney such as repointing or a new cap. A fair roofer tells you in advance how such discoveries are handled and photographs them for you. The largest of these extras is covered on our page about scaffolding cost for a new roof, and the survey photos show you any hidden damage before extra work is agreed, so a surprise on the scaffold becomes a conversation at the kitchen table instead.

Several outside factors can add to a Crawley roof price, and it is worth knowing them before you read a quote.

Scaffolding and the highway licence

Checkatrade puts new-roof scaffolding at £700 to £1,300 in its October 2026 roof replacement guide, covering erection, hire and removal. Where scaffolding takes up pavement or road in Crawley, the licence comes from the county, West Sussex County Council, in its role as highway authority. Its published scaffolding page wants 10 working days or more from application to erection, and shows £266 for a single month. Nothing there names the applicant, so put the question to every roofer you speak to; at Crown the scaffolder and we settle it together. Poles set entirely inside your own plot need no licence at all.

Building control

The Planning Portal's national test is two-part: a project that touches less than 25 per cent of the building envelope and less than 50 per cent of the roof is not expected to need an application. Crawley Building Control words its own list differently, naming work on over 25% of a roof's surface, so a full re-roof in the borough belongs with them.

Asbestos and wildlife

Older buildings raise two further questions. Anything built or refurbished before 2000 should be treated as if it holds asbestos, says the Health and Safety Executive, and that matters for garage roofs and old soffits in particular. Every bat species and its roost sit under full legal cover, and the government's own advice names re-roofing among the jobs that might disturb one, so a roofer should know what to do if one turns up. Neither is a reason for alarm, but both are reasons for the survey to happen before the price is fixed.

Ranges are a starting point, and the survey is what narrows them. Think of the guide figures as the outline of a drawing and the visit as the colouring in. A surveyor measures each slope, checks the pitch, looks at the battens, underlay and rafters from the loft and notes access for materials and scaffold. Photographs of your own roof are shared with you, so you can see what the surveyor saw rather than take a verdict on trust.

What happens after you accept?

A contract signed at the kitchen table after a survey normally carries a 14-day cancellation period under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, with an exception for visits you asked for as an emergency repair. You should also hear what happens day by day on site, how materials arrive, where the skip stands and which days are likely to be noisy, so you can plan around the work.

How do you compare prices sensibly?

Citizens Advice advises getting written quotes from three traders or more. Weigh the total, what it covers, the covering named by its maker and the start window, rather than the smallest number on the page. Our page on roof replacement sets out the stages of a full job.

To begin, send us your address, the house type, the covering on it today and a few pictures from the garden. In reply we name the first things the survey will look at on that sort of roof, and the written price follows the visit.