Slate vs tile: which suits your property
The choice between slate and tile isn't only aesthetic. Weight, minimum pitch and how the roof was originally designed all narrow the options before taste comes into it.
Clay Tile
Plain clay tile dominates Edwardian and inter-war housing on our patch — beautifully durable when laid right, ruinous when patched with the wrong profile.
Lifespan
60–100 years for plain handmade clay; 50–80 for modern machine-made.
Cost / m²
£70–£120 supplied and laid
Category
pitched
Best for
Period homes, planning-sensitive streets, properties where the original cover was plain or pantile clay.
Where it fails
- Frost damage to porous tiles on shaded slopes
- Mortar-bedded ridges letting go after 60+ years
- Mismatched profiles from past patch repairs
- Decorative ridge tiles cracking at the bedding line
Our repair approach
We re-bed ridges with a dry-fix system unless conservation rules require traditional mortar, and we hold stock of reclaimed plain clay for invisible patching.
Clay tile by area
Our guides on this
Dry-fix vs mortar-bedded ridges
Cracked mortar along the ridge is one of the most common defects we photograph. The question is whether to re-bed it or convert to a dry-fix system.
1930s semi roofs: what to expect and when to act
Inter-war semis are the most common house type we work on locally, and their roofs are typically at the point where a decision has to be made rather than deferred.