- Check your roof in September or October and book any repairs before the frosts set in. At Met Office stations across Yorkshire most air frosts fall in December, January and February, and Marley, the tile maker, says mortar needs dry weather between 5°C and 25°C to cure.
- A winter roof check can be done from the ground and the loft: look for slipped or missing slates and tiles, cracked ridge and chimney mortar, lifted flashings, overflowing gutters and unlagged pipes.
- Frost damages a roof slowly. Water that soaks into a porous tile or a mortar joint expands as it freezes, and over many winters it cracks the surface and flakes it away.
- Never go on a roof or up a ladder to clear snow or ice. Leave snow on a sound pitched roof to melt, and get help if a flat roof sags or a leak appears during a thaw.
When should you get your roof ready for winter?
Look at your roof in September or October, and get any repairs booked before the hard frosts of December to February. At Bingley, in the Bradford district, the Met Office's 1991 to 2020 averages show about four or five days of air frost in November, rising to about 10 in December and 11 in January. Autumn is the right time for other reasons too.
- Storm season starts in autumn. The Met Office starts its storm naming year in early September, when low-pressure systems and named storms become more likely, and its winter advice is to check for loose tiles, slates and flashing before it gets windy. A loose slate is far easier to fix before the first named storm than after it.
- Mortar needs mild, dry weather. Marley, the tile manufacturer, says mortar bedding needs dry conditions and a temperature between 5°C and 25°C to cure. Repointing a chimney in October stands a much better chance than the same job in January.
- Insurers expect a maintained roof. The Association of British Insurers says keeping your property well maintained is a key part of a home insurance policy, and that clearing gutters, securing roof tiles and fixing any leaks before a storm can help limit damage. What that means for a claim is covered in our storm damage guide.
If you would rather someone else looked, Roofline's inspections are free and you get photos of anything we find. You can book one here.
How hard is a Yorkshire winter on a roof?
It depends on where you live: Malham Tarn in the Dales averages nearly three times as many air frosts a year as Scarborough on the coast. The Met Office counts an air frost when the temperature 1.25 metres above the ground falls below 0°C, and its 1991 to 2020 averages, rounded to whole days, show the spread across Yorkshire.
- Scarborough: 23 days of air frost a year.
- Sheffield: 28 days.
- Hull: 29 days.
- Finningley, near Doncaster: 38 days.
- Bingley, in the Bradford district: 49 days.
- Leeming, in the Vale of York: 53 days.
- Fylingdales, on the North York Moors: 58 days.
- Malham Tarn, in the Yorkshire Dales: 64 days.
Of these stations, Bingley is the closest to Leeds and Bradford.
The Met Office's climate summary for North East England, which takes in West and South Yorkshire as well as North Yorkshire, says snow falls on about 20 days a year near the coast and in low-lying South Yorkshire, and on up to 50 days over the higher Pennines. Mild winters still bring cold spells. Winter 2025/26 was provisionally England's eighth warmest since 1884, yet in January Storm Goretti brought widespread snow to the South Pennines.
What should be on a winter roof checklist?
Walk round the house on a dry, bright day and look at six things: the slates or tiles, the ridge and verges, the chimney, the flashings, the gutters and the loft. Binoculars or a phone camera on zoom help. Do all of it from the ground or from inside the house, never from the roof.
- Slates and tiles. Gaps, broken pieces in the gutter or on the ground, and any slate or tile sitting out of line with its neighbours.
- Ridge and verges. Mortar missing from under the ridge tiles or dropping out of the gable edge, or a ridge line that is no longer straight.
- Chimney. Bradford Council's guidance says chimneys should be looked at from the ground every six months. It warns that the flaunching, the mortar holding the pots, decays quickly and should be renewed once it is loose or cracked.
- Flashings. The lead or mortar where the roof meets a chimney or a wall. Lead that has lifted away, or a cracked mortar fillet, lets water straight in.
- Gutters and downpipes. Plants growing in them, or water pouring over the front edge in heavy rain. Our gutter cleaning guide covers clearing them safely.
- The loft. With the light off on a sunny day, look for daylight showing through the roof and for stains on the felt or damp in the insulation. Step only on the joists or boarding.
Photograph anything that looks wrong. Send it to Roofline on WhatsApp at 07413 797731 and we will tell you what we think it is and whether it needs a closer look.
Can frost damage roof tiles and slates?
Yes, but slowly. Water that soaks into a porous tile or a mortar joint expands as it freezes, and over many winters that pressure cracks the surface and flakes it away. Wigan Council's guidance on maintaining old buildings names hard cement mortars that trap moisture as a major cause of this kind of damage to brick and stone.
Clay and concrete tiles
The frost test for clay roof tiles is BS EN 539-2, in which saturated tiles are frozen and thawed again and again. To meet level 1, a tile has to come through at least 150 cycles without damage the standard counts as unacceptable, such as surface cracks or flaking. On a real roof, clay or concrete, frost damage shows first where tiles stay wet longest, such as a north-facing slope or the course beside a leaking gutter.
Welsh slate and Pennine stone slate
Good Welsh slate copes with frost for a very long time, and on Yorkshire's Victorian terraces it is more often the nails that fail. Stone slate is different. Derbyshire County Council's technical advice on stone slate roofs says the sandstone is liable to laminate, becoming more absorbent and more liable to frost damage, and that a large number of cracked or spalled slates means the covering needs replacing. The stone slate roofs of the South Pennines and the Dales are sandstone too, so look for slates that have split into layers.
Mortar
Ridge bedding, verge pointing, chimney flaunching and the fillets along walls all crack as water gets in and freezes, then loosen further with each thaw. BS 5534, the British Standard for slating and tiling, now requires ridge and hip tiles to be mechanically fixed, because, as Marley explains, the strength of mortar alone could no longer be relied on to hold them. Our BS 5534 guide explains what that means for your ridge.
Should you clear snow off your roof?
No. Leave snow on a pitched roof to melt, and do not go up a ladder or onto the roof to clear it. The Health and Safety Executive's roof work guidance, HSG33, says rain, ice or snow can make a secure footing "as slippery as a skating rink". It also says roof work accounts for a quarter of all construction deaths.
Pulling snow down from below with a rake or a brush on a pole is a bad idea too. It can drag slates and ridge tiles off with it and drop a heavy load on whoever is underneath.
Snow on a sound pitched roof is not usually a structural worry in Yorkshire. The Met Office says undrifted snow does not often go beyond 15 cm on low ground in the region, although on occasions 30 to 60 cm can fall over a wide area. It also explains that when the air is slightly above 0°C, snowflakes melt at the edges and stick together into big, heavy flakes. That wet snow weighs far more than the powdery kind. The places to watch are flat roofs and conservatory roofs, where snow builds up, and valley gutters, where meltwater has nowhere to go. If a flat or conservatory roof starts to sag, keep everyone out of the room below and phone for help.
As snow melts, watch the gutters. Meltwater running into a blocked gutter can refreeze overnight and hold back the next day's melt, which then backs up under the bottom row of slates or tiles. Fine, powdery snow driven by the wind can also get through gaps in an older roof and settle in the loft, so after a windy snowfall have a look and clear any you find before it melts. If a stain appears on a ceiling during a thaw, our guide to finding a roof leak explains how to trace it.
What goes wrong in the loft when it freezes?
Two things go wrong in a cold loft: pipes and tanks freeze, and moisture from the house condenses on the cold underside of the roof.
Pipes and tanks
The better your loft insulation, the colder the loft above it, so the pipes and cold water tank up there need lagging of their own. The Met Office advises good quality lagging on loft pipes and tanks, and Yorkshire Water says polyethylene foam is the most common pipe lagging and is relatively cheap. If a pipe bursts, turn the water off at the stop tap. If it has frozen but not burst, Yorkshire Water says to thaw it with a hairdryer and never with a naked flame. A burst pipe is a job for a plumber, not a roofer.
Condensation and frost under the roof
Warm, moist air from bathrooms and kitchens rises into the loft. On a clear, frosty night that moisture condenses on the cold felt or membrane and can freeze into a layer of frost. When the weather turns milder it melts and drips, which is why some roofs seem to leak in a thaw but never in rain. Common causes are insulation pushed into the eaves so it blocks the ventilation, gaps around the loft hatch, and extractor fans that vent into the loft instead of outside.
A little frost on the membrane in a hard cold spell is common. Frost or dripping every cold night means the loft needs better ventilation or less moisture coming up from the house. Our guide to a damp patch on the ceiling explains how to tell condensation from a leak.
This guide is general information about roofing in England and is not a substitute for advice about your own roof. Standards and regulations are updated from time to time; check the current edition before relying on a specific requirement. Written by Roofline, roofers across Yorkshire. Last reviewed September 2026.
