Bungalows are common along this stretch of coast, and their roofs have a character of their own. With one storey of walls below it, the roof is the largest part of the building you can see, and it tends to be broad, hipped on all four sides and set at a gentler angle than a two-storey house would have. Chimneys are small, extensions are often flat-roofed, and the eaves are low enough to reach from the ground.
Those features make a bungalow easier to work on in some respects and more demanding in others. Access is simpler and the scaffold is smaller. The covering, though, has to be chosen for the pitch you actually have, the hips need fixing properly, and the loft is a tempting space to use once the tiles are off.
What follows covers a replacement on a bungalow: the roof shape, the pitch, a loft room, the rules and the costs. For the wider process, see our main roof replacement page. Whether the roof needs replacing at all is settled at the survey, before any price.
Why a bungalow roof is its own job
Put the same floor space on one level instead of two and the roof has to double in area. A bungalow roof covers the hall, the bedrooms and sometimes a garage in a single sweep. Size is the first thing that shapes the job, since the tiles, battens and underlay are all bought by area, and there is simply more of each than on a house of two storeys with the same floor space.
Height works the other way. Eaves are low, so a ladder reaches them and the scaffold is a lighter one than a tall house needs. MyBuilder's published scaffold figure of around £850 to £1,200 is for a standard two-storey house (updated 21/08/2026), so a single-storey scaffold will be less. Your own figure arrives in writing once the survey is done.
Valleys and joins
Bungalow roofs are rarely a plain rectangle. An L-shaped plan creates valleys where two slopes meet at an internal angle, and each valley carries the water from both, so it is lined in lead or a moulded GRP trough, and we examine it on every survey. Extensions bring more joints. A porch or a garage built later will have its own flashings against the main wall, and they are among the first places we look when a bungalow has a stain on one ceiling.
Who the work suits
Many bungalow owners are retired or at home during the day. A re-roof is noisy for a few days, but the work is outside and the house stays usable. We talk through the days and the access beforehand, and the rubbish goes with us when we finish.
Hipped roofs: hips, ridges and the fixings that hold them
A hipped roof slopes down on all four sides, which makes it stable in a gale but adds work. A hip is the outer angle between two slopes, and it is capped with its own row of hip tiles running down to the eaves. A bungalow can have four or more hips, and each one runs the full height of the roof, so the ridge-and-hip work is a bigger share of the job than on a gabled house.
Hip tiles have a tendency to slip, because they sit on a steep line and were often bedded in mortar alone. Under BS 5534, revised in 2014, bedding mortar is no longer trusted alone with the ridge and hip tiles: a clip or screw secures them too. A dry-fix system, tested to BS 8612, holds the tiles with clips or brackets instead of a bed of mortar, and it needs far less upkeep. Checkatrade quotes dry hip at £70 to £100 per metre and dry ridge at £50 to £70 (these are typical UK ranges, with VAT to be checked).
Why the hips cost more
For a semi-detached house, MyBuilder (updated 21/08/2026) gives £5,000 to £8,000 for a gable roof and £8,000 to £12,000 for a hipped one. The same pattern holds in principle on a bungalow, since hips mean more cutting, more fittings and more fixings. We cannot tell you your price from a table, but the survey will show how many hips there are and what state they are in.
Cutting tiles at the hips
The courses of tiles meet the hip at an angle, so every one is cut. Good cutting gives a neat, tight line. Poor cutting leaves gaps, so the cuts get checked along with the caps.
Low pitch and the covering it allows
The pitch of a bungalow roof decides which coverings are suitable. Every tile and slate has a minimum pitch below which water can be driven back up the slope, so choosing a covering by looks alone is a mistake on a shallow roof. We measure the pitch at the survey and match the covering to it, using the maker's data sheet each time.
Marley's published figures show the range. Its concrete plain tile needs 35°, which suits few bungalows, while interlocking concrete tiles run from 12.5° to 25° depending on the profile, with Mendip and Wessex at 15° and Anglia at 25°. The Lincoln clay pantile goes down to 15°. For natural slate, BS 5534:2014+A2:2018 indicates a minimum of 20° in moderate exposure, and Cupa adds that slate hooks are unsuitable on anything shallower than 25°.
Wind on a shallow slope
Marley warns that a windward slope under 30° can suffer severe suction. Many bungalow slopes fall into that band, so the fixing specification for the tiles matters a great deal. Every perimeter tile and every ridge and hip fitting is fixed as the maker specifies for the site. Houses close to Shoreham airport may need special advice from the tile maker on fixing.
Ventilating a low roof
Shallow roofs trap damp air more easily. Marley's summary of BS 5250 gives a 25mm continuous gap along the eaves for pitches of 15° or less with a high-resistance underlay, and 10mm above that. We check the eaves are open and that insulation has not been stuffed over them.
Where the existing pitch is too low for the covering on the roof now, a switch of tile is part of the fix, and the survey says so.
A loft room while the roof is open
Re-roofing is the natural moment to ask whether the loft could be a room. The scaffold is up, the covering is off, and the structure is exposed. The order of work is covered in our guide to re-roofing before a loft conversion. For a bungalow the questions are mainly about floor strength, head height and the way out.
Escape is easier to arrange than in a house of two storeys. Approved Document B Vol 1 says that on an upper storey no more than 4.5 m above ground, served by one stair, each habitable room (kitchens apart) needs an emergency escape window or a protected stairway. A bungalow loft room usually sits below that height. An escape window needs an openable area of at least 0.33m², at least 450mm high and 450mm wide, with the bottom of the openable area no more than 1100mm above the floor. A roof window can meet that, and our page on roof window Building Regulations goes through the detail.
Roof windows and dormers
For new roof windows, Part L Table 4.2 allows 1.4 W/m²K or Band B on the Window Energy Rating scale. A dormer is bigger work. Under Class B, a dormer is capped at 50 cubic metres of added volume on a bungalow that is not terraced, and it is never permitted development in a conservation area or the South Downs National Park. Ask the Adur & Worthing planning team before you draw one.
Why the structure matters
Ceiling joists are usually sized to carry a ceiling, not a floor. Making a loft room means strengthening, and the Planning Portal counts structural alterations as work needing building control approval. Insulation is part of that, and a renovated roof may have to meet Part L as well.
Chimneys, extensions and the roof edge
A bungalow chimney is a short stack, but it still needs attention when the roof is replaced. New lead flashings go round it, and the flaunching, the mortar slope that holds the pots in place, is checked for cracks. MyBuilder puts chimney repointing on a bungalow at £200 to £700 (updated 21/08/2026), a typical UK range which a survey of the stack will narrow.
If a chimney breast inside is coming out, Building Regulations approval always applies, as the Planning Portal says, and a party wall notice is required when the breast is on a party wall, which semi-detached bungalows have. That is one for building control, not the roofer alone, and we explain it before the work starts. The options are set out once the survey has looked at the stack.
Flat-roofed extensions
Bungalows commonly have a flat-roofed kitchen or bathroom extension tacked on to the pitched roof, and these age faster than tiles. MyBuilder quotes a typical flat roof life of 15 to 30 years. The join between the flat roof and the main wall is a favourite way in for water, and a flat roof should be laid to a design fall of 1:40 so it drains. If the extension roof is near the end, renewing it while the scaffold is up usually saves a second visit.
Fascias, soffits and gutters
The eaves of a bungalow are within easy reach, so fascias and guttering on the same job cost little extra effort. Our page on fascias and gutters with a new roof says what to do and when.
Old soffits can contain asbestos insulating board. Where we suspect it, work stops until you have been told, before anything is cut or drilled.
Costs on a bungalow, and what shifts them
For a UK re-roof, MyBuilder (updated 21/08/2026) gives typical ranges of £5,000 to £12,000 by house type, and Checkatrade (October 2026) puts the average at around £8,000, with most jobs between £4,000 and £19,000; ask about VAT. A hipped semi is £8,000 to £12,000 and a gable £5,000 to £8,000, on MyBuilder's figures. They are national guides, not a quote for your bungalow. Our new roof cost guide explains the drivers in more detail.
On a bungalow, the biggest movers are the roof area, how many hips and valleys there are, which covering you pick, the scaffold, and whether a loft room or a flat extension roof is part of the work. Labour is quoted by MyBuilder at £50 to £130 per m², a very wide spread that shows how far the job can differ between houses.
Rules to expect
Re-covering needs no building control application while the work touches under 25 per cent of the building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof. A whole new roof on a bungalow passes the roof limit, so plan for approval, and for a thermal upgrade under Part L. Where notification is due, we look after it. A heavier covering of 15 per cent or more also triggers approval, per the Planning Portal.
The written quote
After the survey you receive pictures of your own roof and a written quote showing one total price. Because a bungalow roof is large and low, the survey also looks at the loft space for damp timbers before the covering comes off. A bungalow in a shared building, such as a block with ground-floor flats, follows different rules, which our note on roofs on blocks of flats covers.
