The short answer
A hip iron is a metal bracket fixed to the roof at the foot of a hip, with a hook or tongue that holds the lowest hip tile in place. Hip tiles sit on a slope and want to slide down it. Mortar alone does not stop that for long, so a hip iron is needed on most bedded hips, and a missing one explains many slipping hip tiles.
What a hip is, and why its tiles want to slide
A hip is the sloping external angle where two roof planes meet at a corner, found on hipped roofs, bungalows and the ends of many terraces. Ridge tiles on a flat horizontal ridge sit more or less where they are put. Hip tiles are different. They run down a slope, usually at the same pitch as the roof, and gravity pulls every one of them toward the eaves.
Each tile is bedded in mortar, and in time that bond weakens through frost, movement and water. The hip tiles then bear on each other, with the whole weight of the line resting on the lowest tile at the bottom. If that tile has nothing to stop it, it creeps outward, and the tiles above follow it, opening gaps and cracking the mortar along the hip.
What the fitting does
The hip iron, sometimes called a hip hook or a hip tile support, is a strap of galvanised or stainless steel. One end is screwed down into a batten or the wood beneath the lowest tile. The other end curls up into a hook or flat tongue that sits under or behind the lowest hip tile and holds it from sliding.
Think of it as a stop at the bottom of a ramp. The iron does not carry the tile's weight in the way mortar and fixings carry the line. It takes the downhill push that would otherwise be passed down the line into the mortar. Because the iron is steel and screwed into timber, it keeps working long after a mortar bed has cracked.
The same job is done on a dry hip by the kit's own bracket and clips. A dry-fix hip system tested to BS 8612 includes its own provision at the foot of the hip, so the hip iron and the dry-fix hip are different ways of answering the same problem.
How to tell when one is missing or has failed
From the ground, the usual sign is the lowest hip tile sitting a little proud of the others or hanging lower than the line of the eaves. Look for these clues, ideally with binoculars.
- A gap opening between the bottom hip tile and the one above it.
- Mortar missing or white staining running down the hip.
- A hip line that is no longer straight, or tiles that seem to step outward.
- A bottom tile that has dropped into the gutter or onto the ground.
Up close, a roofer checks whether an iron was ever fitted, whether it has rusted through, whether the screws have pulled out of soft timber, and whether it was bent or the wrong size for the tile. Older roofs may have a strap made from ordinary steel that has corroded to nothing. Others never had one, because the hip was bedded in mortar and left to hold itself.
Do you need one?
In practice, yes, on a bedded hip at a normal roof pitch. BS 5534:2014 treats mortar as a bed rather than a fixing, so every hip tile also needs a mechanical hold. A hip iron is the usual mechanical stop at the foot, with the tiles above fixed to the hip rafter or a batten.
Not every roof is the same. A very low pitch hip pulls less than a steep one, a hip finished with a different cap detail might use a lead or purpose-made closure, and a heritage roof may have its own traditional way of holding hips. Whatever the detail, we look for something positive at the foot of each hip. If a roof has none and the hip tiles are still sitting true, it is working on borrowed time, and the repair is cheaper than waiting for the slip.
For the wider picture of hip work, our guide to hip tile repairs covers repointing, rebuilding and dry hips.
Fitting a hip iron and what it costs
Fitting an iron to an existing hip is usually done as part of a repair. The lowest hip tiles are lifted, the batten or timber at the foot is checked and renewed if soft, the iron is screwed down, and the tiles are bedded or clipped back and pointed. It is a small part of the work and a modest part of the price. Access is the larger cost, because the foot of a hip is close to the eaves and a tower or scaffold is normally needed to work safely there.
Published ranges help you set expectations. MyBuilder's 2026 guide gives £200 to £400 for repointing a ridge or hip, and £300 to £600 for re-bedding or replacing ridge tiles. A dry hip is priced by the metre; Checkatrade's repair guide gives £70 to £100 per metre, excluding VAT. Those are national guides, not our prices. After the survey, your written quote covers the iron, tiles, bedding or fixings and scaffold.
If you can, photograph the foot of your hip from the ground and send it over, or ring 01453 933613. The ridge, verge and dry-fix hub at ridge and verge repairs sits above two neighbouring answers on ridge and hip tile profiles and the verge undercloak.