Find a trusted roofer in Sydney

Terracotta, concrete tiles and salt air

Sydney’s suburbs are a patchwork of roof types, and each one wears out in its own way. Federation and interwar homes across the inner west, the north shore and St George mostly carry terracotta tiles. The tiles themselves often last for generations, but the mortar bedding and pointing under the ridge capping cracks and falls out, and water gets in along the ridge line. Re-bedding and re-pointing is one of the jobs Sydney roofers quote most.

Brick and brick veneer homes built from the 1960s onwards, across western and south-western Sydney, often have concrete tiles instead. Those lose their surface coating over time, turn porous and grow lichen, which is when a restoration (clean, repair, re-point and recoat) earns its keep.

Closer to the water, the enemy is salt. On the Northern Beaches, in the eastern suburbs and around Cronulla, salt spray eats metal flashings, gutters and screws much faster than it does a few suburbs inland. If you’re re-roofing within sight of the surf, ask which steel grade and fixings the manufacturer rates for a marine site.

Storm season and bushfire-prone blocks

Sydney’s thunderstorm season runs through the warmer months, and one cell with hail can leave a whole suburb with cracked tiles and dented gutters overnight. East coast lows bring a different problem: days of wind-driven rain that finds every gap in old pointing and every blocked valley. After a big storm, roofers get booked out fast, so a tarp and make-safe usually comes first and the proper repair follows.

Plenty of Sydney also sits on the edge of bushland, from the Hills and Hornsby to the Sutherland Shire and the Northern Beaches. If your property is mapped as bush fire prone land, ask whether the work has to meet the construction standard for your site’s bushfire attack level (BAL), which can affect sarking, ember screens and how gaps are sealed. Clearing leaves from gutters before summer is basic fire preparation the NSW Rural Fire Service recommends, too.

Licences and asbestos on NSW roofs

Once a roofing job on your home passes $5,000 including GST, the roofer must hold a Building Commission NSW contractor licence in the right class. For terracotta or concrete tiles that’s roof tiling; for metal sheeting, gutters, downpipes and flashings it’s roof plumbing. Search any roofer by name or number on the Verify NSW licence check, and see our NSW licence checks guide for what the result means.

If the house was built before about 1990 and has a fibro roof or eaves, treat it as asbestos until a test says otherwise. Removing more than 10 m² of non-friable asbestos in NSW takes a SafeWork NSW licensed removalist, which your roofer should arrange or flag in the quote.

What roof work costs in Sydney

Sydney roofers price at the top of the national range, and most would rather quote the whole job than charge by the hour. Ballpark figures: $250 to $1,000 to find and fix most leaks, $1,500 to $4,000 to re-point every ridge on a tiled roof, $3,000 to $8,000 for a full restoration, and $8,000 to $20,000 for new metal on a single-storey home. Second storeys, steep pitches and scaffolding all push those figures up. Our roofing price guide breaks the jobs down further; it’s a guide, not a quote.

One roofer, checked before you call

We’re not a directory, and your details won’t be passed to five roofing companies. Say which part of Sydney you’re in and what the roof is doing, and we’ll introduce one local roofer who has passed our licence, insurance, ABN and review checks. There’s more on what roofers do and on other tradies across Sydney, or you can get a free quote straight away.