How to choose a roofer in Crawley

The ten checks

1. A real, findable address. Not a PO box, not a mobile number alone. You want somewhere you could physically go if something went wrong in year three.
2. A trading history you can verify. Companies House, a VAT number, a website that has existed for more than a fortnight. Roofing businesses that vanish and re-form under new names leave a trail.
3. Public liability insurance — seen, not claimed. Ask for the certificate. Check it is current and that the cover is at least £2 million. Ask whether it covers work at height, because some policies quietly don't.
4. A licensed waste carrier registration. A re-roof produces several tonnes of waste. If your roofer fly-tips it, the Environment Agency traces it back to the householder who paid for it.
5. Someone went up and looked. A price given from the pavement is a guess. It will change once the scaffold is up, and it will only change in one direction.
6. An itemised written quote. Named materials, named membrane, battens graded to BS 5534, scaffold, waste, VAT. If the quote is one line and a number, you have no protection at all.
7. A sensible payment schedule. A materials deposit on a large job is normal. Half up front is not. Never pay the full amount before the scaffold comes down.
8. A guarantee in writing with a duration, a scope, and the name of the company standing behind it. Ten years on workmanship is a reasonable benchmark; manufacturer guarantees on materials sit on top of that.
9. Recent local work you can look at. Any established roofer can point you at streets they've worked on. Drive past. Roofs are public.
10. Photographs of the work in progress. The parts that matter most — the membrane, the battens, the flashings — are invisible once the tiles go on. A good roofer photographs them without being asked.

Questions worth asking out loud

• "Who will actually be on my roof — your own team or subcontractors?"
• "What happens if you find rotten timber once the tiles are off, and how will you price it?"
• "Is the ridge going in on mortar or dry-fix, and why?"
• "Which membrane are you using, and is it breathable?"
• "What are your working hours, and where will the skip go?"
• "If I find a problem in three years, who do I ring?"

You are not being difficult. Any roofer who takes their work seriously will enjoy these questions, because they are the ones that distinguish them from the cheapest quote in the pile.

On accreditations

Schemes like TrustMark, CompetentRoofer, NFRC membership and manufacturer approvals are useful signals — they mean somebody independent has looked at the business. They are not a guarantee of good work, and plenty of excellent small firms hold none of them because the fees are significant relative to their turnover.

Treat them as one input among ten, not as the answer. Verifiable insurance, a real address, an itemised quote and local work you can go and look at tell you more than any logo.

The cheapest quote

Get three quotes. If one is dramatically cheaper than the other two, something has been left out, and it is worth finding out what before you celebrate.

The usual candidates: scaffold excluded, VAT excluded, waste removal excluded, mortar ridge instead of dry-fix, non-breathable membrane, ungraded battens, or a plan to lay new over old. Each of those is a real cost that someone pays eventually, and on a roof it is almost always you.

Equally, the most expensive quote is not automatically the best. Compare the specifications line by line. When all three are quoting the same build-up, the difference is genuinely just price and personality — and at that point, pick the one you would be comfortable ringing in five years.

Why local matters more here than in most trades

Roofing guarantees are only as good as the company still being there. A ten-year workmanship guarantee from a firm that operates out of a van and covers four counties is a piece of paper. From a family business with a yard in Crawley and a name that means something in the town, it is an actual commitment, because we have to keep driving past your house.

Local also means we know the stock. We can tell you what your neighbours' roofs are doing, which tile profiles were used on which estate, and where to find matching reclaimed tiles for a 1930s semi in Ifield. That knowledge is not on a website — it comes from working the same streets for years.

Last reviewed August 2026 by the Bonwycks Roofing team. Prices are genuine local ranges for Crawley and the surrounding towns and are reviewed twice a year — your own quote will always be specific to your roof.