A missing roof tile, slipped tiles and cracked tiles

Tiles are designed to overlap in a pattern that sheds water down and off the roof, course by course. Once one tile moves, slips, cracks or goes missing entirely, that pattern breaks at exactly that point, and water that was meant to run off the surface can get underneath instead.

Why tiles slip or crack

• Age. Fixing nails corrode over decades, and a tile that was securely nailed thirty years ago can eventually work loose on its own
• Wind. Strong gusts, particularly during storms, can lift and dislodge tiles that are already slightly loose
• Frost. Water that's soaked into a tile and then freezes expands and cracks the tile from within, a common cause of cracked, rather than missing, tiles
• Impact. A fallen branch, or even a bird landing awkwardly on an already weakened tile, can be enough to crack or dislodge one that was already close to failing
• Moss buildup. Heavy moss growth can hold enough weight and water to lift or shift tiles over time, see our roof cleaning guide

Is a missing roof tile an emergency?

It depends on the weather and the location. A missing tile during a dry spell, on a section of roof not directly over a room you use daily, is worth fixing promptly but isn't necessarily an emergency in the truest sense. A missing tile with heavy rain forecast, or one positioned directly above a bedroom or a room with valuable contents below, is worth treating as urgent. Swift Roofing offers emergency roofing and same-day callout, 8am to 6pm, seven days, for exactly this kind of situation.

Can I replace one tile myself?

On a low, single-storey roof with safe, stable access, some people do manage a single tile swap. The real risks are working at height without proper safety equipment, and fitting a replacement tile that doesn't sit correctly in the overlap pattern with the tiles around it, which can leave a gap just as capable of letting water in as the missing tile was. Matching the exact profile and colour of an older tile can also be harder than it sounds. For anything above ground-floor level, or where the surrounding tiles also look loose, it's a job better handed to someone insured and equipped for roof work.

How many missing tiles before I need a re-roof rather than a repair?

A handful of missing or slipped tiles, isolated to one or two areas, is almost always a straightforward repair. Widespread tile failure across large sections of the roof, especially combined with tiles that are visibly perishing, crumbling at the edges, or decades past their expected lifespan, points toward the covering reaching the end of its life generally, where a full replacement becomes the more sensible long-term choice rather than repeated repairs to the same ageing covering. Our new roof cost guide covers that price range separately.

What a proper repair involves

A repair isn't just pushing a replacement tile back into the gap. It means checking the felt or membrane underneath for damage from however long the gap's been there, checking the battens the tile sits on are sound, and fitting a matching replacement correctly into the overlap pattern so it sheds water the way the original did. Swift Roofing's roof repair service covers exactly this, and our free inspection, worth £199, checks for any other tiles nearby that are loose or close to failing, so you're not calling back out for the next one a month later.

What's the cheapest way to fix it?

Calling as soon as you notice it. A single slipped tile, fixed promptly, is one of the smallest, cheapest jobs in roofing, generally within our small repair price range. Left through a wet season, the same starting problem regularly turns into a larger repair once water has had time to get into the timbers and insulation underneath.

Swift Roofing covers Wisbech, King's Lynn, Peterborough and Norwich, with a 10 year written workmanship guarantee on every repair.