The short answer
A gable roof has two slopes meeting at a ridge, with a vertical wall rising to a triangle at each end. A hipped roof is sloped on every side, with the ends pulled in and finished as hips. Gables have verges to maintain, while hips have more ridge and hip tiles and more cut tiles. Neither is more watertight, so the weak points simply sit in different places.
What each shape is
A gable roof is the shape a child draws: two rectangular slopes leaning together, with a triangular wall of brick or stone filling each end. The slopes meet along a single line, the ridge. The top edge of each slope that finishes against the end wall is called the verge.
A hipped roof has no end wall at all. The end of the house gets a slope of its own and water drains off in four directions. The sloping line at each outward corner is the hip, and an inward corner forms a valley instead. A plain hip roof on a rectangular house has one ridge and four hips. There are variations: a half-hip, sometimes called a jerkinhead, clips only the upper part of a gable end, and a dutch gable adds a small gable above a hip.
The road view makes the difference obvious. From the loft it is just as clear: gable roofs usually have a simpler frame, while hips have extra timbers running diagonally to carry the corner.
Where a gable roof gives trouble
The verge is the first thing to watch. It is the edge where tiles or slates finish against the gable wall, and wind catches it from the side. Older houses have the edge bedded in mortar. BS 5534:2014 stopped treating bedding mortar as enough by itself for ridge, hip and verge tiles, and expects a mechanical fixing too. Dry systems for those positions are tested to BS 8612:2018.
The gable wall itself can be a source of damp. Where the roof meets the wall, a flashing of lead usually covers the joint, and if it lifts or cracks, water gets into the stonework. Chimneys are often built into the gable wall, adding another junction.
A gable also presents a big flat face to the wind. The ends of the roof take the force, so tile slip tends to begin at the verge. Our page on measuring roof pitch helps you work out whether the tiles suit the slope, because a low pitch makes wind-driven rain a bigger risk.
Where a hipped roof gives trouble
A hip puts a sloping joint down each corner, and that joint is covered with hip tiles or a lead roll. These are bedded or fixed in a line, and every tile along the line is a place for mortar to crack. Each hip also ends at the eaves, often with a hip iron, a metal strap that stops the bottom tile sliding. If the iron rusts, the hip tiles can creep.
The slopes either side of a hip need cut tiles, because the courses run at an angle to the line. Cut tiles are more fiddly to fix and more likely to slip or crack than whole ones. On a slate roof, the hip may be mitred or covered with lead, and either detail takes skill to lay watertight.
There is also more ridge and hip to maintain. In MyBuilder's cost guide, a dry ridge system is typically priced at £40 to £60 per linear metre, so a roof with four hips and a ridge has more metres than a gable of the same size. Treat those as typical UK ranges from MyBuilder in 2026, not Empire figures. Our own price is fixed only after the survey.
What the shape means for cost and upkeep
Hipped roofs cost more to build and to re-cover. MyBuilder's new roof guide gives typical figures of £5,000 to £8,000 for a gable and £8,000 to £12,000 for a hipped roof. The difference comes from the extra cutting, the extra tile at the hips and the more complex framing, not from any difference in quality.
Upkeep differs too. On a gable roof, the work is concentrated at the verges and the chimney or wall flashing. On a hipped roof, it is spread along the ridge and the hips. In both cases the same rule applies: the roof leaks at joints, so the joints are what we check.
Neither shape suits every house. A hip can look balanced on a detached villa, while a gable suits a terrace or semi where the party wall carries up to the roof. If you are replacing a roof, keep the original shape unless there is a reason, since changing it can need planning consent. A conservation area makes that stricter, and our page on roof tile types explains which tiles suit which shape.
Choosing repairs by roof shape
Start with how the roof is built. Look from the ground at the verges and the hips. Loose or missing hip tiles are visible from the pavement with binoculars, and a gable verge with crumbling mortar shows as a ragged line.
For repair, we match the material. On an older tiled roof that can mean salvaged tiles to keep the weathered look, and testing them is explained under reclaimed roof tiles. Ridge, hip and verge repairs are usually done with mechanical fixing, either a dry system or mortar with a fixing, according to the roof and the tile.
A free survey tells you which parts of your roof are due attention. Survey pictures let you check our findings against your own eyes, and a written fixed price follows. Other tiled work is listed under pitched roofing in Bath.
