Who removes the old roof, and where does it go?

On a pitched re-roof the waste is mostly the old covering, plus underlay, timber battens, nails, and sometimes rotten rafters or boards, lead and ridge pieces. A rubbish chute fixed to the scaffold takes material down to a skip or a vehicle at ground level, so nothing is thrown from height and the garden and the lane stay clear. On steep or tight Stroud lanes, where a skip cannot always stand directly in front of the house, we settle the position at the survey, well before the first load.

Weight is a real factor. The Cotswold District Council guidance on stone slate roofs puts a stone roof at about 1,000 kg for every 10 m², so a stone strip produces heavy loads and more lorry trips than a light tile covering would. Our guide on scaffolding for a re-roof explains how chutes and loading bays are laid out.

Dust and nails are the other practical concern. Old roofs shed grit, and stray nails puncture tyres and feet, so a magnetic sweep of the drive, garden and pavement is part of a proper finish, not an extra.

Waste from a building job is the responsibility of the person who produces it, and a householder can be held to account for what happens to it if a carrier dumps it illegally. The practical answer is to use a firm that removes it as part of the contract and can tell you where it goes. Ask the roofer who carries the waste, and whether they can show a waste transfer note on request. Be wary of anyone who offers to take the old roof away for cash on the doorstep without saying where.

Never accept a verbal promise that the old roof is going to a proper site; ask for the arrangement in the quote. Skips come in a range of sizes, and a pitched roof on a terrace will usually need less than a large detached house with a double garage. If a skip must go on the road, the highway authority may want to license it, and the roofer should know whether your street is one of those. All of this should be settled before the scaffold goes up, and mentioned in the quote, not left as an assumption.

Not everything that comes off a roof is rubbish, and sorting it on site makes later loads lighter and cheaper to carry. Sound slates and clay tiles can sometimes be kept and relaid, and old timber that is still good may be reused in minor repairs. The balance depends on the roof. Cotswold District Council's guidance observes that on stripping, commonly about 50% of the slates on a stone roof turn out to be perished. The sound remainder is worth sorting and keeping to relay with new matching stone. It also reproduces an English Heritage rule that slates salvaged from a building should return only to that same building. For the practical side of reuse, see whether old tiles or slates can be reused.

Metals such as lead are recycled, and clean timber can go for reprocessing. Mixed rubble and contaminated material are sorted at the waste site. We cannot promise a recycling rate for your job. The right answer is to ask where each type of waste goes, and to expect a clear reply.

Some older garage, outbuilding and farm roofs are made of asbestos cement sheet. HSE guidance treats the careful removal of asbestos cement items like roof sheeting as non-licensed work, provided the sheets are lifted whole and not broken. If it is substantially damaged or broken, for example by fire or flood, it becomes notifiable non-licensed work, which has additional requirements for notification and medical surveillance.

The point for you is practical: if a roof may contain asbestos, say so before the work, and do not let anyone break it up or drop it from height. On MyBuilder's 2026 asbestos removal guide, taking off a single garage roof runs from about £350 to £1,295. Our garage roof pages cover that case in more detail, and a house re-roof will not normally involve asbestos.

MyBuilder's 2026 guide to a new roof gives disposal as £100 to £1,000 within a full re-roof. That is a wide range because the roof, the covering and the access all differ. After the survey we send a written quote, and waste is covered alongside scaffold, strip, materials and labour. The national picture for the whole job is in our guide to what a new roof costs.

When comparing firms, check that each includes the same things. A low price that leaves the waste to you has not saved anything, and our answer on comparing re-roof quotes like for like shows how to compare them. Some of the old material may also have a bearing on energy use, which our note on whether a new roof cuts heating bills explains.

At handover the site is swept clear, and a written guarantee on our workmanship runs for 10 years. The roof replacement page brings the rest together.