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Re-bedding seats the ridge cap in a new bed. Repointing finishes the visible edge once that bed is sound. Melbourne homeowners mix the two up because both look like the mortar on the hip. Roof Revival Melbourne checks the bed before any edge is finished, and a flexible ridge is a different system from mortar.
Stand on the nature strip and the ridge is one line: caps, a pale edge, a few cracks. Quotes then collapse that line into one verb. “We’ll repoint it.” “We’ll redo the bedding.” “Ridge caps included.” Those sentences can mean three different scopes and three different prices. The money page for the edge work is roof repointing in Melbourne. The seat under the cap is roof re-bedding. Roof Revival Melbourne writes them as separate lines when the roof needs both, and as one line only when the inspect shows the other is still sound.
This page stays in plain language. It does not publish a mortar recipe, a mix ratio, or a bag count. If you came here to remix cement on a Saturday, stop. The ridge is the waterproof joint on a tiled roof. Getting the material wrong, or smearing a new skin over a dead bed, is how the ceiling stain comes back before the next winter.
The bed is the mortar the ridge cap sits in. Think of it as the seat, not the paint. The cap is a tile on the spine of the roof. It needs a full, even seat so it cannot rock, slide, or open a gap when the roof heats and cools. On 1970s and 1980s concrete-tile hips across the east, that original seat is often powder. You can crumble it with a finger. The cap may still look straight from the driveway. Under it, the seat has already left.
Re-bedding means the caps come off, the failed seat is cleared, and the caps go back onto a new bed, set to the line of the ridge. Then the edge is finished. Roof Revival Melbourne describes that as a trade, not as a cosmetic smear. If a quote never mentions lifting caps, ask whether anyone is actually re-bedding. A trowel along the old edge can look fresh by Friday and leak by August.
On a failed hip the two jobs are one package, and the order is still seat first, edge second. A fresh edge on a loose cap hides the problem until the next wet change moves it.
Pointing is the finished edge you see between the cap and the field tiles. It closes the gap the bed does not show from the street. When people say “the pointing is cracked”, they are usually right about the symptom and wrong about the cause. Cracks in the edge can mean the edge itself has fretted. They can also mean the seat has shrunk, the cap has rocked, and the edge cracked because it was asked to hold a loose tile.
Repointing renews that visible edge after the bed is known to be sound. If the bed is sound and a short run of edge has opened — a repair, a local movement, a section someone else cut for a flue — repointing can be the whole ridge scope. If the bed is dust, new pointing is decoration on a loose cap. Roof Revival Melbourne will not point over a dead bed. The service is written that way because the failure is so common, and because the cheap quote depends on you not knowing the difference.
Ask for a photo of a cap lifted, not only a fresh edge. The lift is the re-bed. The edge is the repoint.
The mix-up shows up in three places. The first is the invoice that says repoint and never lifted a cap. You paid for an edge. The leak path was the seat. The second is a full re-bed price on a hip where the bed is still solid and only two metres of edge have fretted. You paid for a reset the roof did not need. The third is a restoration that “includes ridges” with no metres, no mention of lifting, and a coating date the next day. The coating then covers the evidence.
A standard restore across Melbourne often sits around $4,000–$12,000, and ridge work is a real share of that band on a big hip roof. Two-storey houses in Balwyn, Doncaster and Templestowe carry long ridges and awkward access. A single-storey Glen Waverley veneer can have less ridge and still need every metre reset if the 1970s bed has powdered. Comparing a “repoint special” to a full restore without asking which caps come off is how the cheap number wins the Tuesday and loses the winter.
A leaking hip on an otherwise hard tile can be re-bed and repointed on its own. Roof Revival Melbourne names that as a repair. A restoration that drops the ridge to hit a lower number is a different piece of paper.
Mortar is the traditional seat and the traditional edge. It is rigid. Melbourne roofs move through a February northerly and a winter wet, and old mortar eventually powders. New mortar, properly seated and finished, is still the right system on many tiled roofs, especially where the caps and the streetscape want to match.
A flexible ridge moves a little with the roof. Some are flexible pointing over a sound bed. Some are a manufactured ridge system specified for the cap and the tile. Roof Revival Melbourne chooses for the roof in front of us. Heritage terracotta in Camberwell or Hawthorn often wants mortar that belongs on that street. A concrete hip with a history of cracked rigid points can suit a flexible specification. Coastal salt in Brighton and Hampton still needs a real seat either way.
What flexible is not: silicone smeared into a crack, a tube product from a hardware aisle, or a coating brushed over the old fillet. Paint is not pointing. A flexible system is still ridge work, still specified, still dependent on the caps being secure. If a quote says “flexi” and cannot say whether caps are lifted, you have a word, not a method. We will not print install steps or material recipes here. The decision you need is which system is named, and whether the bed is part of it.
Eastern concrete tile from the 1970s to the 1990s is the textbook. Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley, Box Hill, Ringwood: long hips, original mortar, first serious ridge failure. The bed and the point often fail together. Quoting “just the cracks” on that stock is how the next quote happens in two summers. Inner-east terracotta can fail at the same joint with a harder matching problem. The cap profile matters. A neat modern fillet on an old terracotta ridge can look like a repair from another suburb.
Bayside salt and wind-driven rain turn a hairline into a wet ceiling in Sandringham. Younger estates in Point Cook, Tarneit and Craigieburn often leak at flashings and valleys, not at a forty-year bed. Roof Revival Melbourne inspects the ridge. The tiles decide the scope.
Ask four things. Are the caps lifted. Is the old bed cleared. Is the edge mortar or a flexible system, named. Which ridges and hips, in metres or in a marked plan. A sentence that answers all four is a ridge scope. A sentence that says “ridges ticked” is a checkbox. If the job is inside a restoration, those four answers still belong on the page, next to the tile allowance, the prep and the coating name.
Fresh mortar wants time before a heavy rain. Handover photos should show the line of the caps, the finished edge, and a record that caps were off. If the tiles themselves are soft across the pitch, ridge work will not save the decade. Replacement commonly starts from about $20,000. Call Roof Revival Melbourne on 0426 516 883 or email info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au with suburb, storeys and a ground photo of the ridge.
Send suburb, storeys and two roof photos. Roof Revival Melbourne — 0426 516 883 · info@roofrevivalmelbourne.com.au
