The short answer
Yes, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 cover building work at a private home, and you count as a domestic client. What changes with the size of the job is who carries the extra duties. Those turn on whether the job brings in a second contractor, not on whether the work is notified to anyone. Each project, large or small, needs a written construction phase plan.
Where a homeowner sits in CDM
In the HSE's wording, the domestic client is a private person who commissions building work at their own house, or at a relative's, with no business purpose behind it. A homeowner who pays for a new ridge, a re-slate or a flat roof over the kitchen fits that description exactly.
The label matters because CDM sorts clients into types. A landlord letting out a flat, a managing agent or a shop owner is acting in the course of a business and so their duties differ. Our guide to CDM on commercial roofing deals with that side.
Holding that label does not oblige you to run the site or master the regulations. The regulations are written to place the working duties on the people who control the work. It does mean the law has you in view as the person commissioning it, so the paperwork described below is something you are entitled to ask for, and a roofer who has never heard of it is a poor sign.
If the house is a family member's home, the same description applies to you when you pay for the work, which suits adult children arranging repairs for a parent.
What switches the extra duties on
Many people assume that CDM's heavier duties arrive when a project is notified to the HSE. That is not how the regulations are built. Regulation 5(1) adds two named roles, the two named roles of designer and contractor in charge, once a second contractor joins. So the trigger is the number of contractors on the project.
A single firm doing the whole roof falls on one side of that line. Hiring a roofer plus a second firm for another trade on the same project puts you on the other side. A kitchen extension with its own flat roof, built by a builder who brings in a roofer, is a typical case with several contractors on site.
When the extra roles do apply, they are filled by the designer and the contractor in charge, not by the homeowner. For you, the practical test comes at the start: how many firms will be on this job, and who is coordinating them?
It is better to ask that question before the work is booked than to find out in the middle of it. Where several firms do turn up, the written plan should say who is in charge of the site as a whole.
The construction phase plan on every job
Whatever the number of contractors, a plan is needed. Regulation 15(5) makes the lone contractor on a project responsible for writing the construction phase plan. With two or more firms on site, the principal contractor writes it. Either way, no project is exempt for being small.
For a roof, a plan is a short written account of how the job is to be carried out without accidents. It deals with the matters that actually decide whether a roof job goes well:
- the way onto the roof and what stops people falling;
- who and what is below, including the garden, the drive and the neighbours;
- where materials, skips and waste are kept during the job;
- how the site is left secure when the crew goes home.
This is part of how we run a job. After the survey you see the photos and the measurements, and the plan follows from what we found, such as a steep slope or an awkward side path that calls for a scaffold. A scaffold on the road side also brings in a separate licence question, which our page on the Hampshire scaffold licence covers.
What this means for your project
The sensible questions for a homeowner are short. Will only one firm be on the roof? Who will draw up the construction phase plan, and can you see it before work starts? If more than one firm is involved, who has the lead role?
None of this makes a small repair into a paperwork project. A few slipped tiles repaired by one roofer on one visit needs the plan in proportion, a page of sensible arrangements rather than a file. A re-roof with a scaffold, a skip and several days of work needs more thought, and the plan reflects that.
Neighbours come into it too, because a roof job touches their space as much as yours. Our answer on roof work and neighbours explains what to tell them and when party wall rules may apply.
A single total price on paper follows the survey, and the plan comes in the same pack. If you want the detail of the regulations, the HSE's pages for domestic clients are the place to read them, and the full list of what we cover starts from the homepage.
