What should a heritage roof record before the first tile is lifted?

The roof you can still see is the drawing

Once courses are stripped, the only evidence of the gauge, the lap, the ridge detail and the odd repairs is whatever was written down. Heritage roofs are full of odd repairs. A terrace may have original slate on the street and three later patches on the rear. A villa may have a terracotta profile that changes slightly around a chimney because a bay was rebuilt. If that is not recorded, the reinstatement becomes “something similar”, and something similar is how street faces drift. Roof Revival Melbourne treats the existing roof as the drawing set. The method says what is kept, what is moved, and what is new.

The record is practical, not theatrical. Elevations from the footpath. Each plane labelled. A close photograph of the tile or slate with a tape in frame so length and thickness are not a memory. Ridge caps from the side. Leadwork at the chimney before it is peeled back. A note of which units are already broken, so the repair is not later blamed for every chip. A note of sarking, if it can be seen, and of battens where a slipped unit lets you look. This is the file you can hand to a council, a designer or a future owner.

Verbal agreements do not survive a wet week. “We’ll put the good ones back on the front” needs a photograph of the front and a count, or it becomes a judgement made in the rain when the skip is easier. The method is written while the roof is dry and still whole.

What the method has to decide in advance

Which planes are repaired in place, which are relaid, and which are left alone. Where original sound units will be concentrated, almost always the street face if new units will not match. What profile is being sourced, with a sample compared to the original before the order, not after the strip. How ridges are finished: the same cap, a stated substitute, mortar or another system, and why. How flashings are renewed so the junction matches the old fold closely enough for the street and well enough for the water.

It also decides what will stop the job. If the battens are rotten, the method should say the work pauses for that scope rather than burying the discovery. If the profile cannot be supplied, the method should say the street face waits rather than receiving a near-enough tile by default. If an overlay approval is still open, the method should say no covering comes off. Roof Revival Melbourne would rather a short document with stop-points than a long brochure that assumes nothing surprising will be found under an old roof. Old roofs are surprising.

The method is not a set of instructions for a handy owner to strip the roof on a weekend. Lifting heritage tile and slate without the record, the safety and the supply is how the drawing is destroyed. The document is for agreement and for the trade that will do the work.

Photographs that are worth having

Take them in raking light so the profile throws a shadow. Include the ridge against the sky, because that silhouette is what objectors and planners remember. Include a chimney from two sides. Include the gutter and any perforated decorative iron only as context for the roof edge, not as a separate trade you have not engaged. Photograph previous cement repairs and mismatched patches so the method can say they will not be copied. A single hero shot from across the street is the least useful frame in the set. The useful frames are close, repeated, and labelled by plane.

Inside, photograph stains and, from a safe place at the manhole, the underside. Heritage roofs leak at soakers and ridges more often than through a generally tired field. The internal photo stops the method chasing the wrong plane. Date the set. If planning or a building surveyor later asks what was there, the date shows the record was made before the work, which is the whole point.

How the record deals with materials you did not expect

Under later coverings, Melbourne houses sometimes still hide an earlier material, or a patch of cement sheet used in a lean-to or a repair. Cement sheet is not a tile we restore with a coating and a shrug. If it is the asbestos-containing product many older sheets are, removal is a licensed removalist’s work. Roof Revival Melbourne does not describe how to take those sheets off, and we do not do that removal. The method notes the finding, stops the relevant area, and points you to the licensed trade. The rest of the roof is not used as an excuse to improvise.

Lead, old underlays and tired battens are recorded so they can be priced, not so a reader can improvise a replacement from the note. The note says “lead soaker at the south chimney, split at the fold”, not a step-by-step fold. Specification is allowed. A home recipe is not what this file is for.

Who signs off before the lift

You sign the scope you understand: planes, profile, street-face rule, stop-points. If a heritage adviser or a designer is on the job, they see the same pages before the scaffold is live. If the council has approved a method, the pages in the roof quote match the pages in the approval. Drift between those documents is how a compliant job becomes a variation nobody applied for. Roof Revival Melbourne works to the agreed file. Changing the street face because a different tile arrived is a new agreement, not a site decision.

A building surveyor, where one is required, may want this record as part of understanding the work. Offer it. A roof described only as “re-roof heritage” is difficult to permit and difficult to build. A roof described as “relaid original slate to the street plane, new matching slate to the rear, lead soakers renewed to the recorded detail” is a job.

After the work, close the file

The handover adds photographs of the same planes, the ridge, and the junctions, so before and after use the same labels. Note what was new, what was original, and what could not be matched, in one paragraph. You then own a record that is useful at sale, at a later leak, and if anyone asks what was approved. Roof Revival Melbourne keeps a copy of the job file for the work we did. You should keep yours with the house papers, not in a message thread.

Send what you already have: street photos, any previous approval, any report that names the overlay. We will say what else must be recorded before a tile is lifted, and we will not lift it until that method is the one you and, where needed, the council are actually using. Heritage methodology is that pause. The pause is the part that keeps the roof you think you are saving.

The standard, in one line

If the roof were stripped tomorrow, could a stranger rebuild the street face from the file alone? If the answer is no, the file is not finished, and the first tile stays where it is.