What does each job actually do?
A restoration keeps your roofing and renews what's around it. On a concrete or clay tile roof, that usually means treating moss and lichen, replacing broken tiles, rebedding and repointing the ridges (relaying and resealing the mortar that holds the ridge caps down), then coating. On an iron roof, it means treating rust, swapping out any sheets that are past saving, replacing loose nails with screws, and repainting.
A re-roof takes the old roofing off and puts new on. It usually comes with new underlay, flashings and fixings, and it's often the sensible moment to replace tired spouting (gutters) as well.
Signs your roofing is still worth keeping
- Iron with surface rust only, and no holes or flaking through the sheet
- Tiles mostly whole, with a handful cracked rather than cracks everywhere
- Leaks you can trace to ridges, flashings or fixings, not the roofing itself
- Dry, sound timber when you look up from the roof space
- Paint faded or chalky, but the material under it intact
- A roofer happy to put a written warranty on a coating over it
Signs you're past restoring
- Rust holes, or daylight showing through the iron from inside the roof space
- Rust spreading from the laps (where sheets overlap) and around fixings across much of the roof
- Tiles cracking or crumbling all over, not just where someone has walked
- Leaks turning up in new places after earlier repairs
- A sagging roofline, or soft and rotten purlins or battens
- Nails lifting across the whole roof, with rust around the holes
If the roof might contain asbestos
WorkSafe says a home built before 1 January 2000 may contain asbestos, and it lists asbestos cement roof sheeting, ridge capping and roofing panels such as Super Six among the places it turns up. Don't cut, drill, water-blast or walk on it. WorkSafe's safe work sheet for cleaning weathered asbestos cement and decramastic tile roofs says to apply biocide with a low-pressure sprayer and never use high-pressure spraying or blasting. Restoring or removing an asbestos roof is a specialist job, covered in our asbestos roofing guide.
Restoring buys time. Re-roofing resets the clock.
The Building Code gives a useful sense of scale. Clause B2 Durability expects the building envelope, which includes the roof cladding, to last at least 15 years, and renewable protective coatings at least 5 years, both with normal maintenance.
Those are minimums a product must be able to meet, counted from when the code compliance certificate is issued. They aren't forecasts for your roof. Still, they show the difference: a coating is something you expect to renew, while the roofing underneath is the part you replace when it's done.
So a restoration makes most sense when the roofing has plenty left in it. If it's already tired and you plan to stay for a long time, the restoration money can often do more as part of a re-roof.
What paperwork comes with each?
Most restorations are repair and maintenance using comparable products, which Schedule 1 of the Building Act allows without a building consent.
Many like-for-like re-roofs are exempt too. New Plymouth District Council gives replacing roofing with the same type, where the old roof is more than 15 years old, as a typical example of work that doesn't need consent. Wairoa District Council says the same about new corrugated iron replacing old with no change to the purlins, unless the cladding failed within 15 years.
Changing the roofing system, say from iron to pressed metal tiles, or changing the purlins, does need consent according to Wairoa. When a re-roof needs a consent, the roofing is restricted building work, so it must be done or supervised by an LBP (Licensed Building Practitioner). They give you and the council a Record of Work when they finish.
Whichever job it is, if the price is $30,000 or more including GST, the contract must be in writing and you must get the disclosure statement and checklist before you sign. Our guide on building consent for a re-roof covers the consent side in more detail.
Safety on a restoration isn't optional
Restorations mean days of work at height. WorkSafe treats roof restoration that runs over some days for resealing, painting or repair as long-duration work, where scaffolding or edge protection should be considered.
It also says people working on single-storey homes need the same fall protection as on two-storey homes. If a restoration quote has no scaffolding or edge protection in it, ask how they plan to work safely. A cheap quote that skips this is cheap for a reason.
Restore or re-roof, side by side
| Restore | Re-roof | |
|---|---|---|
| Makes sense when | The material is sound, the finish isn't | The material itself is failing |
| What changes | Coating, ridges, fixings, a few sheets or tiles | All the roofing, usually with new underlay, flashings and fixings |
| Building consent | Usually not needed for repair and maintenance | Often exempt like-for-like, needed if the system or purlins change |
| Needs an LBP | Usually not | Yes, if it needs a consent |
| Building Code benchmark | Renewable coatings: at least 5 years | Building envelope: at least 15 years |
| Size of the job | Smaller, mostly preparation and coating | Larger, with more unknowns once the old roof is off |
What makes each job bigger or smaller?
Without quoting figures, the same few things push both jobs up or down: the size of the roof, how steep it is, whether it's one storey or two, and how easy it is to get scaffolding and materials to the site.
On a restoration, the condition of the roofing drives the bill. A roof needing a wash and two coats is a much smaller job than one with rust to treat across every sheet, dozens of broken tiles or ridges to rebed end to end.
On a re-roof, what's found when the old roofing comes off is the big unknown. Rotten battens or purlins, a consent, new spouting and new flashings around chimneys and skylights all add to the job. A good written quote names each of those, says what happens if rot is found, and doesn't leave them to a vague allowance.
That's also why restoring a roof that's already tired rarely pays. You'd be paying for a lot of preparation on roofing that still has to be replaced before long.
How to make the call
Look from the ground and the roof space
Use binoculars from the yard for rust, cracked tiles and moss. With a torch in the roof space, look for daylight, rust flakes and water stains on timber. Step only on the joists.
Ask a roofer to judge the material, not just quote a job
Ask for photos of the laps, ridges, fixings and the worst areas, so you can see what they saw.
Get both options quoted
Ask for a restoration quote and a re-roof quote on the same visit, each with what's included written down.
Think about how long you'll stay
Selling in a year or two is a different decision from staying for the long haul.
Check consent and LBP needs
Ask the roofer whether the job needs a building consent, and if it does, check they're an LBP on the public register.
Try our quiz if you're still torn
Our restore or re-roof quiz walks through the same questions a roofer would ask.
What you can check, and what needs a roofer
You can
- Binocular check from the ground on a dry, bright day
- A torch check in the roof space, standing only on joists
- Photos of ceiling stains and where they appear after rain
- Find out roughly when the house and roof were built
- Clear downpipe outlets you can reach from the ground
Leave to a roofer
- Anything on the roof itself
- Judging whether tiles or sheets are brittle or rusted through
- Moss treatment, coating and ridge rebedding
- Replacing sheets, tiles and fixings
- Any re-roof, and the consent paperwork
Where we'd land
If the iron or tiles are sound and the trouble is paint, moss and ridges, we'd restore, and expect to recoat again down the track. If there's rust through the sheets, tiles breaking up across the roof, or leaks that keep moving, we'd skip the restoration and put that money towards a re-roof. When it's genuinely close, ask the roofer which one they'd do on their own house, and why.
Want a roofer to take a look?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match it with a Find My Roofer certified roofer who specialises in that kind of work, and they call you to quote. Your number goes to them alone.