Why ask your roofer for photos?

1You cannot check what you cannot see

A roof is the one part of a house few owners ever look at closely. The ridge, valleys, flashings and the back slope are out of sight, and the loft is an awkward place to inspect. That gap in knowledge is where trouble starts.

A roofer who comes down the ladder and says "you've got slipped tiles and the flashing is gone" is asking you to take their word for it. Most roofers are straightforward. Even so, a statement with no evidence cannot be tested, and a roof is expensive enough to deserve better. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires reasonable care and skill from anyone providing a service. Photographs are the simplest way to see whether a diagnosis rests on something real.

Good photographs also help the roofer. A clear image of a cracked verge or a lifted lead apron shows the fault more precisely than a verbal description, and leaves no room for argument later about what was found on the day.

2What makes a useful roof photograph

The best pictures are specific. They show one fault, close enough to read, and then a wider shot of where it sits on the roof, so you can match the two. A close-up of a broken tile means little unless you can see which slope it is on and what is around it.

Look for pictures taken from beneath the covering as well. Inside the loft, a picture of a wet rafter with a tide mark, or the back of a slipped slate with daylight showing through, is difficult to fake and easy to understand. A pole camera or a drone can reach areas a ladder cannot, which is covered under drone against ladder surveys.

Ask that images are of your house. Generic pictures of a failed roof tell you nothing about yours. Check that the date on the file or the message is recent, and that the features in the frame, a particular chimney, a neighbour's gable, a satellite dish, are ones you recognise.

If the roofer cannot show a fault, ask why.

3Protection against damage that was never there

The risk worth naming is the invented problem. Doorstep callers who offer to look at a roof after a storm are the classic example, and the damage they report can be moss presented as rot, a few shifted tiles presented as a failing roof, or a fault that was already there blamed on the weather. Photographs do not remove that risk by themselves, but they make it much harder to carry off.

The test is simple. If the roofer says something is broken, they should be able to show it in a picture you can zoom into. If the picture is blurred, taken from the road or does not match your roof, the claim is unproven. Ask for another look.

Beware of anyone who asks you to pay a deposit for a problem they cannot show. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, a contract made at your home gives you 14 days to cancel, and an urgent repair you specifically asked them to visit for is excluded. Neither point replaces proof of the fault itself.

4Photographs as a record afterwards

The value does not stop once the quote is accepted. Before-and-after pictures show that the work was done and where. They help if the repair fails and you need to say what was fixed, and they are useful to a future buyer or surveyor who asks what has been done to the roof.

They also matter for insurance. The Financial Ombudsman Service weighs up whether a storm was the main cause of the damage, so pictures that show the actual cause carry weight. Clear, dated photographs of the damage and the cause make that question easier to answer. We cannot promise any outcome from an insurer, and you should speak to yours before permanent work begins. See the roof report for insurers for what to gather.

Keep the pictures somewhere safe, not just on a phone that may be replaced. Name the folder with the address and the year, and add the quote and any invoice, so the whole job sits in one place if you ever need to show it.

5Three questions for any roofer

On our own surveys, the photographs are of the customer's roof and come with the written quote. We show the cause as we found it, and the quote follows from the findings.

Whoever you choose, ask three things. Will I get photographs of my own roof, taken during the visit? Will they show the fault and where it is? And will the quote refer to them, so I can see which fault the work answers? If the answer to any is no, treat the diagnosis with caution.

Where a photograph shows something beyond a roofer's field, for example a crack that suggests movement, the right step may be a specialist. Our guide to when a structural engineer is needed explains the signs. For flat roofs, the flat roof inspection page lists what the pictures should show, and preparing for the visit covers your side of it. The roof inspections and surveys overview shows how our own visits work.