The short answer
A free roof survey is worth having when it leaves you with pictures of your own slopes, each fault explained and a written price you are free to turn down. It will normally be a visual inspection by a firm that hopes to win the work, so treat it as a diagnosis and a quote, not as independent advice. For a dispute or a sale, a paid report may suit you better.
What a free survey normally includes
A free survey is a visit paid for by the firm doing it, in the hope of being asked to carry out the repair or replacement. That is a perfectly fair arrangement, and for most householders it is the quickest way to learn what a roof needs. What you receive depends entirely on who turns up and what they are willing to do.
A decent visit has a recognisable shape. Someone studies the roof from the pavement and, if conditions allow, from a ladder, an access hatch or a drone. Their attention goes to slates or tiles, the ridge, hips, any lead round stacks and walls, and the gutters at the eaves. If you have a loft, they should ask to see it, because damp, daylight and rotten timber show up there first. They then explain what they found, ideally with photographs you can keep.
That last point is the test. A verbal verdict you cannot check is just an opinion. Photographs of your own roof, with the faults pointed out, let you judge for yourself and show the same evidence to another roofer, your insurer or a buyer.
Where a free survey stops
Free does not mean independent, and it is better to say so clearly. The firm making the visit has a stake in the result. A good one will tell you when a repair will do, and we always repair where repair works. Not every firm behaves that way, which is why the written detail matters more than the sales manner.
A free survey also tends to be shallow in particular respects. It is rarely a full condition report with graded findings and remaining-life estimates. It will not usually measure moisture in timbers, run thermal imaging across a flat roof or inspect a block of flats in detail. It is not built to stand up when a neighbour, a landlord or an insurer disagrees with you.
For that kind of purpose, a paid report is the better tool. Typical UK prices reported by MyBuilder in 2026 are £150 to £500, with standard inspections at £150 to £250, drone surveys at £200 to £400 and thermal surveys at £300 to £500. To see how the survey types differ, read roof survey or building survey for a side-by-side view.
Spotting a useful visit from a poor one
You can learn a lot in the first few minutes. Look for these signs of a visit worth your time.
- They explain what they are about to do and ask permission to enter the loft or the garden.
- They name the part and the cause. A split in the lead at a parapet drip, slipped slates from rusted nails, a blocked valley: specific faults, not a general scare.
- They show you the evidence on a phone screen or in photographs sent afterwards.
- They separate urgent from deferrable. Everything cannot be an emergency.
- They put the price in writing and leave you time to compare.
Be cautious of the opposite pattern. Unsolicited callers who say they spotted a problem while passing, offers that expire the same day, a demand for a deposit before any written quote and a refusal to show photographs are all reasons to pause. You have no duty to decide on the doorstep, and a firm confident in its diagnosis will wait while you compare.
Remote and drone options
Free surveys are changing. Many firms now use a drone, a camera on a pole or a walk over the slopes, which can reveal faults that ground-level views miss, and they may send images the same evening. Used well, this gives you better evidence than a ladder at the gutter line.
Remember that a camera shows surface condition. It will not tell you how firmly slates are nailed or whether a flat roof deck has gone soft underneath. Equally, a flight over a house raises questions about permissions and privacy, which our page on drone roof survey rules covers.
Whichever method is used, ask for the images themselves, not just a summary. Check that they show your house and not a stock picture, and that each one is labelled with the slope or detail it shows. Comparing two firms is easy when each has shown you the same slope, and difficult when each simply tells you a story.
When to pay for a report instead
A free visit is the right first step for most repairs and re-roofs. A paid, independent report makes sense when the stakes are higher or when the reader of the report is someone else. Examples include buying a property where the roof has been flagged, as covered in pre-purchase roof survey, a landlord and tenant disagreement, an insurance claim that has been challenged, or a building where several parties share the roof.
Even then the free visit has value. It tells you whether the problem is serious enough to justify the cost of a formal report, and it gives you a priced option to compare against. With us the visit costs nothing, the fixed price is put in writing afterwards, and anything we build or repair is covered by a written 10-year workmanship guarantee. You decide at your own pace, and you keep the photographs whether or not you hire us.
If you want to see how our visits fit together, from a quick ground check to a full condition report, start from roof inspections and surveys.
