Compliance Marketing for Roofers
Replace more than a quarter of a roof and it is generally notifiable
The rule almost no roofing customer has heard of
A full roof re-tile is £5,090. Fascias, soffits and guttering, £1,830. A flat roof in EPDM, £1,790. A repair, £505. A survey, £175.
Under the building regulations in England and Wales, replacing more than a set proportion of a roof covering — commonly taken as a quarter — is generally treated as a material alteration. That means it is notifiable to building control, and it can trigger a requirement to improve the thermal performance of the roof where it is reasonably practicable to do so. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents and the detail varies by property and circumstance.
In practice this means a £5,090 re-tile is frequently not simply a re-tile. It may involve insulation work, and it should involve either a building control application or certification through a competent person scheme.
Almost no homeowner knows any of this. And a significant part of the roofing trade does not raise it, either because it complicates the sale or because they cannot certify the work themselves.
That gap is the entire opportunity on this page. A roofer who explains it, handles it and certifies it is offering something the cheap quote down the road cannot — and is doing it in a trade where the customer’s main anxiety is being taken advantage of.
Why this is unusually strong for roofing specifically
Because it converts the trust problem into a proof point.
The customer cannot inspect your work. They cannot judge your diagnosis. What they can understand is that one roofer explained a regulation, arranged the certification and handed over a document, and the other did not mention it.
It also has consequences that arrive later, which makes it credible rather than pushy. Uncertified notifiable work surfaces at sale, in the property information form, in exactly the way uncertified electrical work does. A homeowner who has spent £5,090 and has no certificate has a problem they will not discover for years.
And there is a second compliance market alongside it: commercial and rented property. Flat roofs on managed buildings, insurance requirements, periodic condition reporting for managing agents, and access and edge protection on commercial jobs. That audience buys on documentation and is served badly.
The ratio
A re-tile is £5,090. Our Noticed package is £49 a month — £588 a year. One re-tile covers more than eight years.
On competitive position: if a third of the local trade avoids notifiable work or cannot certify it, then explaining the requirement removes those competitors from consideration on exactly the jobs that are worth the most. That is a considerably better use of a page than another set of before-and-after photographs.
What we’d actually build
A page explaining when roofing work is notifiable, written carefully, with the nation and property caveats stated rather than glossed.
An insulation upgrade explainer — what it means in practice, what it adds, and what it does for the customer’s heating bills, which turns an obligation into a benefit.
A certification and documentation page, covering how the work is signed off and what the customer receives.
A “what happens at sale” page, which is the consequence that makes the whole thing land.
A commercial and managing agent set — condition reporting, flat roof documentation, access statements.
Annual review dates, because this is regulatory content and stale regulatory content is worse than none.
What good looks like at twelve months
- Notifiability explained plainly on the site and raised in every survey
- Insulation presented as a benefit rather than as an unwelcome extra
- A certificate handed over on every notifiable job
- A commercial section aimed at managing agents
- Quotes winning against cheaper ones without the price changing
The mistakes we see most
Not raising it. It makes the sale simpler this week and leaves the customer with a problem and you with no differentiator.
Stating the rules as though they were simple. They vary by nation, property and extent of work. Say so; it reads as expertise rather than as hedging.
Treating insulation as an imposition. It reduces heat loss through the roof, which is a genuine benefit to sell rather than a cost to apologise for.
No documentation at handover. The certificate is the proof that the whole conversation was real.
The first ninety days
Weeks 1–4. The notifiable work page, written with proper caveats, and a plain explanation of what it means for a typical re-tile.
Weeks 5–8. Insulation and certification, plus the at-sale consequence page.
Weeks 9–12. The commercial and managing agent material, and review dates against every regulatory page.
At ninety days the measure is whether notifiability is being raised at survey stage as a matter of course. It changes the character of the conversation and it changes who you are being compared with.
Where this lands in Gaffer
Certificates and building control paperwork attach to the property, so the document a homeowner needs at sale in nine years is retrievable rather than lost with the job.
Survey records hold what was found and what proportion of the covering was being replaced, which is what determines whether the work was notifiable in the first place.
And because the property record persists, a managing agent’s condition reporting across several buildings is a schedule rather than a set of separate visits nobody has joined up.
The solar question, which is now part of most roofing conversations
There is a compliance area sitting on top of your existing one, and it is growing fast enough that avoiding it is becoming a competitive disadvantage.
Solar panels on a domestic roof generally fall within permitted development in England subject to conditions on projection, position and listing, with different treatment in conservation areas and on listed buildings. The installation itself sits under electrical regulations and scheme certification, and there is a structural question that is properly yours: whether the roof can carry the additional load, and what state the covering is in underneath.
That last point is where the commercial opportunity is, and it is genuinely in the customer’s interest.
Fitting panels onto a covering with five years left is a bad decision that a great many households are currently making, because the solar installer is not a roofer and does not raise it. Removing and refitting an array to re-roof underneath costs a substantial sum and is entirely avoidable if the sequencing is right.
A page explaining that — check the roof before the panels, here is what we look for, here is what it costs to do it in the right order — is useful, honest and produces re-roofing work at exactly the moment a household has already decided to spend money on the roof.
It also opens a referral relationship with local solar installers, who would generally rather send a customer to a roofer than inherit the problem.
Questions roofers ask
Will raising this lose me jobs? It loses you the ones that were going to the cheapest quote regardless. It wins the ones where the customer was looking for a reason to choose properly.
Is the quarter rule exact? It is the commonly applied threshold and the detail varies. The page says so, which is the honest and more credible position.
Who certifies the work? Either building control or a competent person scheme, depending on your registrations. The page explains your actual route.
Does insulation always apply? Where it is reasonably practicable, broadly. It is a judgement rather than an absolute, and describing it that way is accurate.
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