When there is nowhere to put the ladder
On a detached house with a driveway, access is not a line item. On an attached house on a narrow street, or on a hillside lot in Easton, it decides how material gets up, how debris comes down, and occasionally whether a detail gets rebuilt or merely sealed.
- 1 The ridge. The highest course, and on slate the one most often reset by hand.
- 2 The field. Slate on the older stock, shingle on the rest. Two very different clocks.
- 3 Valleys. Where leaf litter settles, and where a slate roof usually ends its life.
- 4 Wall flashing. The party wall of a row or twin, rising through a roof two houses share.
- 5 Penetrations. Holes cut on purpose. When access is awkward they get sealed instead of rebuilt.
- 6 The overhang. Where meltwater from a warm attic reaches cold framing and stops.
What difficulty actually costs
Time, mostly, and it is real time rather than padding. Material carried by hand instead of hoisted, debris bagged instead of chuted, protection for a neighbour’s property on both sides, and sometimes a street permit for the container. None of that is optional and all of it is invisible in a price per square.
It also constrains the crew. Some equipment does not fit, which changes the method rather than just the schedule.
The quiet consequence
When access is hard, the temptation is to seal what should be rebuilt. A penetration or a wall junction that requires working from an awkward position is exactly the detail a rushed crew treats with sealant instead of new metal. It looks identical on the day and fails within a few years.
That is why access is worth raising yourself rather than waiting for it to appear as a surprise. A contractor who prices it openly is a contractor who plans to do the awkward parts properly.
What to establish beforehand
Where the container goes and for how long, whether a permit is needed, how the neighbours on either side are protected, and how the crew reaches the rear roof. Four questions, all answerable in a site visit, and all cheaper to ask than to discover.