A hip roof replacement, from bare timbers to finished ridge

The brief: a hip roof replacement

A hip roof slopes down on all four sides, with an angled ridge, the hip, running from the top ridge to each corner. It looks neat from the road and it is more work than a plain gable roof, because every hip is a joint where two slopes meet at an angle.

This project is a re-roof of a house with a hipped roof and a chimney stack beside it. The photographs show it at three stages: bare timbers, battened and ready for tile, and finished.

Bare timbers: where a hip roof is won

The first photograph looks straight down on the stripped roof. The hip rafters run diagonally from the corners to the ridge, with the common rafters framed in against them. Everything that follows sits on this frame, so any timber that is out of line shows on the finished roof.

Scaffold with a full handrail surrounds the roof, which makes the work safe and gives the team room to work. A thorough risk assessment comes before the first slate comes off, not after.

Where timbers need replacing, that is quoted line by line, so you see the cost before the work begins.

Membrane and battens over the hip

The second photograph shows the slope covered in membrane with new battens fixed across it, row by row, running up towards the ridge, with the tiles still to come. The batten spacing is set so the tiles land evenly right up to the hip, and two roofers work on the scaffold at the eaves.

On a hip roof the battens are set out so the tile courses meet the hips without slivers, and the tiles at each hip are cut to a clean mitre. This is the work that makes a hipped roof look sharp for decades.

The finished hip roof

From above, the finished roof shows a clean ridge running down each hip, rounded hip tiles bedded along the angle and even courses of tile either side. The roof sits square on the house, with gardens and neighbouring roofs spread out below.

All work is backed with a 20 year written guarantee, and the paperwork is issued when the job is complete.

Need a hip roof replacement?

Hipped roofs sit on bungalows, semis and detached houses across our area. Every quote is free and no obligation, with materials and labour costed separately, and we promise to beat any written quote. See new roofs and re-roofs, tiled roofing and dry verge and ridge work, then ask for your quote.