Putting a slipped slate back in its row
A slate slips when whatever held it has failed. The usual fixing is a nail through the slate's head into the batten, the thin timber strip across the rafters. When that nail corrodes, snaps or pulls out, the slate slides down until its tail hangs below the row.
The repair has four parts:
- Check the slate itself. A slipped slate that is cracked or has a broken nail hole is replaced, not re-fixed.
- Lift the slates in the course above enough to free it, so the roofer can see the batten and the old nail.
- Slide the slate back to its line, so the lap with the slates around it is restored.
- Fix it with a tingle, a small metal tab fixed to the batten that wraps round the slate's tail, or with a hook, depending on the pitch.
Cupa advises against hooks below 25 degrees of pitch, so a shallow roof gets a different fixing. The method is the same in principle as for a broken slate, which our page on replacing a single slate covers.
Done well, a slipped slate is back in line within a short visit, and nothing shows from the road.
Checking the fixings around the gap
The slate that has moved is only the one you can see. The neighbours were nailed in the same decade, to the same batten, in the same weather. If their nails have weakened, the next slate to slip may be a metre away.
A roofer working on a slipped slate looks at:
- the slates either side and in the course above, by easing each gently to see whether it holds;
- the exposed nail ends and batten, for rust or rot;
- the headlap, the overlap with the slates under the row, which a slip shortens;
- the loft below, for damp staining or daylight.
A single slipped slate with sound neighbours is a small repair. Several slipped slates in one area, or loose ones all over the slope, point to nail sickness, the corrosion of the fixings, which our guide on nail sickness explains. Then the question changes from how to re-fix one slate to how long the rest of the roof will stay up.
A roofer should say what they found at the gap in plain terms, with a photo if needed. A short report on the fixings is a fair thing to ask for before agreeing a wider job.
What a slipped slate repair costs
The most useful published figure is the repair rate. Checkatrade's roof repair guide, with its table dated June 2026, lists natural slate at £150 to £220 per m². The same table gives concrete tiles at £90 to £120 per m² and clay tiles at £110 to £160 per m².
Two limits apply to those rates:
- They exclude VAT, which has to be added.
- They are set per m² only up to a maximum of 3m², so do not multiply them into a figure for a larger repair, and they are a general national range.
MyJobQuote's average repair figure is around £650 for 2026, and it cites an emergency call-out as typically £150 to £300. Those figures are for roof repairs in general, not slate alone.
What sets the price on your roof is access, how many slates are involved and what lies under them. A slipped slate low on a garage is cheaper to reach than one on a chimney side three storeys up. Which? and HomeBuilding place South East prices above the national picture.
Ask whether a quotation covers VAT and, where the work needs it, scaffold.
What to do while the slate is still out of place
Do not climb to push the slate back. Slate is brittle, a wet or mossy slope is slippery, and the slates around a slipped one may be loose too. Work from the ground.
A sensible order for the days before the repair:
- Look from the ground, ideally with binoculars or a phone's zoom, and photograph the gap and the slope around it.
- Check the loft, if you can do so safely, for drips or damp patches under that slope.
- Place a bucket or sheet under any leak, and move belongings away.
- Keep people off the path below if the slate is hanging.
A slipped slate that is close to falling is a hazard to anyone underneath. If it has already fallen, keep the pieces, since the roofer can match the thickness and colour from them.
If the roof is leaking now, ring your insurer before anyone else, hold on to the photos and receipts, and ask a roofer for a make-safe visit. The wider slate roofing page covers repairs, re-slating and the checks that come before either.
