Specialist costs: Roof coverings

Market overview

There is a wide spectrum of roof covering materials, which are used for different structural, aesthetic, economic, and performance reasons. Roof designs have developed from just being a weather performance element to an architectural trademark that can be environment-friendly, structurally sound, reasonably priced and aesthetically attractive.Gardiner & Theobald’s research has shown that the UK roofing market continues to grow, with estimated annual turnover of £1.8bn for 2005, up 15% from 2000 figures.

The increase in regeneration schemes throughout the country has contributed to the higher demand for roofing products, particularly steel roofs. Mixed-use developments have overtaken pure housebuilding, and the trend is to bring visual coherence to the different elements of a scheme by roofing them in matching materials.

According to figures supplied by Market & Business Development, steel roofs have had a greater increase in market share than any other roofing material over the past five years. In 2004, 48.8 million m2 of steel roofing was installed, compared with 34.1 million m2 in 2000, which is a 43% increase. Metal roofing as a whole has increased its share of the market from 34% in 2000 to 49% in 2004, primarily because of a huge increase in demand for standing-seam roofs.

The increased use of daylighting in buildings has resulted in roof glazing taking up a small portion of the market share.

When it comes to procurement, most roof covering contracts are let to domestic subcontractors, mainly because there is no design element involved in this package. All the same, specialist roofing contractors contribute valuable knowledge and expertise to achieve the required roof specification and produce the desired functional and visual effect in the finished building.

Factors affecting the UK market Legislation has been the most serious setback to the effective growth of the market. New legislation, or revisions to old legislation, is increasingly making it difficult for small and medium-sized contractors to stay in business. This trend is likely to continue with the upgrading of Building Regulations Part B, which increases fire precautions, and Part L, which increased thermal and energy efficiency (see “Hot topics”, right).Because of its dangerous nature, roofing work may be adversely affected during extended periods of bad weather. The increasingly turbulent storms and unsettled weather conditions of recent years have had a negative impact on the roofing market as a whole.

Shorter or wetter summers will affect the growth of the roof refurbishment market.

According to research conducted by MSI Marketing Research for Industry, other factors have a significant impact on demand for roofing materials in the UK. They include the overall UK economy, demand within the construction industry, the shortage of skilled labour and changing design considerations.

Architectural trends are of considerable importance to the level of demand for roofing materials in the UK. It is widely believed that over the past five years, architects have largely developed a preference for the use of more traditional materials such as slates and clay tiles because of the environmental and aesthetic advantages that they bring. The market for copper roofing has also benefited from a growing appreciation of its appearance and lengthy life expectancy.

Roof waterproofing, usually an impervious membrane, is now required on all types of roof, even in traditional domestic tiled and slated roofs, in the revised Part C4 of the Building Regulation, which deals with resistance to moisture. Accordingly, research by MSI shows that the UK market for roof waterproofing increased some 10% between 2000 and 2004 and a further 3% in 2004 alone.

Market forecast
According to the latest survey from Market & Business Development, the total market turnover for the roofing industry is anticipated to increase steadily between 4% and 5% a year between 2005 and 2007 before slowing down to 3% a year between 2008 and 2009. Translated to monetary values, the market will increase from £1.8bn in 2005 to £2.1bn in 2009, based on 2004 retail sales prices.

Hot topics

Roofing specialist Q&A

With an annual turnover of more than £30m and 200 staff, Prater is one of the UK’s top five roofing contractors – and Building’s Roofing Contractor of the Year for 2003. It started trading in the 1950s, and now provides complete building envelopes and installs all types of roof covering, with the exception of traditional slates and tiles; it operates across England and occasionally abroad. Here director Andy Newman give his insights into the British roofing scene.

What is happening to tender prices?
They are staying fairly stable. It is difficult for subcontractors such as us to raise prices, because main contractors take on lump-sum contracts fixed for 12 to 18 months and they are looking for the cheapest prices from subcontractors.

Won’t recently increased labour rates push up tender prices?
Not dramatically because the agreement only applies to PAYE operatives. We minimise our risk by subcontracting out 70-75% of our work.

What are the current trends in materials?
There’s a vogue for standing-seam metal roofing, such as Kalzip, as architects think it helps them win awards. Green roofs are also coming to the fore, and we have just completed one on the Wellcome Trust’s new Genome Campus outside Cambridge.

Is health and safety growing in importance for roofing contractors?
We regard safety as paramount, and we have a full-time safety officer as well as employing a safety consultant. Safety measures include erecting safety nets underneath entire roofs with open structures.

What impact will the changes to Part L of the Building Regulations have?
Some are already making allowance for the next revision, with U-values of as little as 0.16W/m2K and insulation up to 180 mm thick. It takes two people to handle them on site.

What do you see as the next challenge for the industry?
The biggest challenges to us will be other companies moving into the market – and keeping up with new regulations and standards.

How do you see the future?
The 2012 Olympics will bring in a lot of work, not just in sports facilities but in the whole regeneration of Stratford that will spin off it. The key challenge will be how to deliver all this in five to seven years, even if there isn’t a recession.

Design and specification

Because of performance requirements and legislation, roofs are now required to meet standards ranging from heat absorption and emission to solar glare, from weatherproofing to aesthetics. The selection of roof coverings is also subject to changing fashions. For example the use of steel roofs has spread from mostly industrial buildings in the past to include residential and commercial buildings today.

All types of roof coverings provide the following basic functions:

Roof types

Pitched roof coverings
A pitched roof is generally defined as a roof with a pitch exceeding 10°. Traditional pitched roof coverings consist of overlapping tiles of slate, clay or concrete, which are durable, aesthetically pleasing, low-maintenance and possess an inherently good fire rating because of the incombustible nature of the material.

Costs

The roofing market remains competitive, with only small inflationary increases being passed onto the consumer. The Gardiner & Theobald tender price indices report low price rises of between 3% and 5% a year in the past two years, despite steel prices rising between 20% and 30%. This can be attributed to the influx of labour from Eastern Europe, which has eased the labour shortage in the construction industry.

Oil price increases have resulted in the higher transportation costs for the industry in general, and most of these increases have been passed on to the consumer. The liquid roofing sector has been most hit by oil price increases as they use oil-based materials such as asphalt and bitumen. The cost of liquid roofing is generally considered likely to follow fluctuations in oil prices for the foreseeable future.

The price of steel-based roof coverings continues to rise, conforming with the general trend of steel prices over the past two years. The price of copper roof coverings has been reported to be rising weekly.

The table below shows some current roof covering tender prices.

A simple comparison of flat roof to pitched roof shows that a pitched roof takes about 10% more roof coverings than a flat roof, depending on the pitch. This extra cost needs to be weighed against the roof structure costs and the associated sundry fittings and rainwater disposal costs before a conclusion is reached as to which option is cheaper. Rainwater disposal methods, such as fulbore outlets cast into concrete flat roofs, tend to be more complex and hence more expensive than eaves gutters in pitched roofs.

The preliminaries costs for roof coverings vary between 12% and 20% of the total roofing costs. The choice of covering and type of roof structure play an important part in determining the amount of preliminaries. For example, a concrete framed building with built-up roofing felt finish requires less scaffolding, craneage and working platforms because the finished roof frame can be used as both storage and working platform for the application of the roof finish. A similar building with a steel or timber roof structure will require more craneage and hoisting equipment to lift the roof trusses to the top of the building and will also require scaffolding and working platforms to install the roof coverings. It should be noted that preliminaries are driven by a number of factors such as location of the project, the complexity of the design, programme and the available working space among others. Tendering procedures also contribute to preliminary costs in that fixed price tenders attract a risk premium like any other construction tender.

Warranties

The roofing industry has been developing Sir John Egan’s proposals for single-point responsibility as highlighted in his report Rethinking Construction.

Up until now, the norm is for a specifier or designer to specify a certain roof, usually with a name of the supplier given. The supplier will in turn have commercial arrangements with a few ancillary suppliers and approved contractors. This leaves the tendering installer with no choice as to the products he is committed to install. The maker usually guarantees the product, provided it has been installed properly, and the installer provides a separate warranty covering workmanship.

But in recent years, progress has been made to concentrate responsibility for both the installation warranty and product guarantee into a single point. Vision 25, an independent insurance scheme from Alliance Warranty Management, offers building owners and developers a 25-year latent defects warranty covering both materials and labour. It requires audited accreditation of the roof installer and has the advantage of offering policyholders protection against installers going bust and being unable to honour warranty payments.

Market players

Principal roofing material suppliers

Handmade clay tiles:
Keymer Tiles www.keymer.co.uk

Machine-pressed tiles:
Lafarge Roofing (formally Redland) www.lafarge-roofing.co.uk

Natural slates from Spain and Argentina:
SSQ Group www.ssq.co.uk

Artificial slates:
Eternit Slates www.eternity.co.uk

Standing-seam roofing:
Corus Kalzip www.corusgroup.com

Broderick Structures www.broderickstructures.co.uk

Composite panels:
Kingspan www.kingspan.com