Do roofers need to go on the roof to inspect it?

From the pavement or garden, a roofer with a good pair of binoculars can read a lot. Straight tail lines on a slate roof, regular courses of stone, an unbroken ridge, level hips and sound verges all look right from the ground. Slipped or missing tiles, leaning chimney stacks, sagging ridges and gutters pulling away from the fascia usually show up too.

This kind of view is quick and carries no risk to the roof. It also suits a first look when you are deciding whether a survey is needed at all, and it costs nothing but a few minutes in the garden. A phone photograph taken from the garden with the zoom on can give a roofer enough to say whether a problem looks cosmetic or serious.

What the ground cannot show is detail. Distance flattens everything, and a roof seen at an angle of a few degrees looks far smoother than it is. Cracked slates look whole from twenty metres. A lifted lead flashing may look flat. And the weather side of a roof, the part facing away from you, may be invisible from your boundary.

A pole camera puts a lens on a telescopic mast, held up from the garden or the top of a ladder, and sends a live picture to a handheld screen. It gets close to eaves, valleys and low roof slopes, and is useful for a flat porch or single-storey extension where you want to see the surface without standing on it.

A drone covers what a pole cannot: ridges, chimney stacks and far slopes on a tall or steep house. It produces still photographs and video that can be reviewed afterwards, and it avoids ladders and scaffold at the assessment stage. The two tools are weighed against ladders in our guide to ladders, pole cameras and drones. MyBuilder's 2026 guide puts a drone survey at £200 to £400, compared with £150 to £250 for a standard one, so a drone is not always the cheaper route. Weather matters too, as wind and low light limit what a drone can capture clearly. A drone flight also needs the property owner's agreement and a safe launch point clear of neighbours, trees and overhead lines, which is not always possible in a tight terraced street.

Some checks need a hand on the roof. On a stone roof the slates hang from oak pegs, and a rotted one can be confirmed only by lifting a slate or by checking from the loft. Lead flashings need pressing to see whether they have lifted. A flat roof membrane needs walking and pressing to find blisters, soft boarding and open seams. Mortar at the ridge and verges can look intact until it is touched.

Where a roof is fragile, such as asbestos cement sheets, old fibre cement, or glazed panels, nobody should walk on it, and we use a camera, a crawl board or access from inside instead. On a very steep or high roof we may use scaffold or a tower rather than a ladder. Access gets priced early. Steep lanes, terraced hillsides and tight yards change what equipment is needed, and the price reflects it from the start, with nothing left to discover at the door.

Whatever happens outside, the loft needs to be seen from inside. Through the hatch, a roofer scans the roof from below for daylight, the underlay for tears, the battens and rafters for damp or rot, and the insulation for staining. Many faults that look minor from above show their true extent here, and some roof problems, like condensation, can only be judged from inside.

If you cannot get into your loft, tell us when you book. A hatch blocked with boxes, or a loft with a boarded floor and no access to the eaves, limits what can be seen, and the report says what could not be checked. That honesty protects you, because a gap in access is a gap in the findings, and you can decide whether to clear the way for a second visit. Our page on estimating a roof's age uses underlay and fixings as clues, and those are also seen from inside.

A distant look is enough when you want a general opinion, when you are simply curious about a patch that looks odd from the road, when the roof is recent, or after a storm when you need to check for visible damage. A close inspection with photographs is the better choice when you are buying or selling, planning a repair, or trying to trace a leak.

Often the answer is a combination, and it saves money to let the cheaper views narrow down the expensive ones: drone or pole camera first, then a ladder or loft visit for the points that matter. Our guide to the difference between a survey and a quote visit explains how the two visits differ. Whichever method we use, the report includes pictures taken on your roof, and where work is needed the quote in writing covers it. That work carries a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.

To arrange a visit, ring 01453 933613 or send photographs by WhatsApp. For the wider picture, see roof inspections and surveys.