The short answer
Good practice says yes, where the tile and its position call for one. BS 5534, the slating and tiling standard, expects tiles to be held by mechanical fixings such as nails or clips and not by weight or mortar alone. Marley is clear that BS 5534 is not a legal duty, but careful roofers follow it, because a clipped tile is far harder for the wind to lift.
What a clip does
A roof tile is hung on a timber batten by a nib or lug on its back, and in many cases it is also nailed through a hole near its head. That arrangement holds it against sliding down the slope. It does less against wind, which tries to lift a tile from below, particularly where the edge of the tile is exposed.
A clip answers that. It is a small metal strap, usually stainless steel, hooked over the lower edge of a tile and nailed or screwed to the batten. It pins the tail of the tile down. Where a tile has no nail hole, or where one nail is not enough, a clip supplies the fixing.
Interlocking tiles lean on their side grooves to resist lift. Plain tiles rely on the weight of overlapping courses. In both cases the extra fixing is what stops a tile that has been disturbed from working loose and sliding.
The fixings must be corrosion-resistant. Iron nails rust, swell and lose their grip, and that is a common reason for slipped tiles on older roofs. Our page on slipped roof tiles explains how failed fixings show up.
Clips also let a roofer fix a tile that cannot be nailed from above, for instance where the courses above hide the nail line.
What BS 5534 says
BS 5534 governs slating and tiling practice, and the edition in force is BS 5534:2014+A2:2018. It covers how tiles and slates are held, mechanical fixing against wind uplift included. As a code of practice it describes how work should be done and what a competent roofer is expected to follow.
It is not the law. Marley states that installing to BS 5534 is not required by law, and that is an accurate way to describe its status. In practice, though, it is the benchmark that careful roofers work to, and it is what a dispute would be measured against.
Approved Document C of the Building Regulations, paragraph 6.8, asks for each sheet and tile to be held in a suitable way. The wording is broad. A roofer who follows BS 5534 has a sound answer to what suitable means.
The 2014 revision also changed practice at the ridge and hip, where mortar alone is no longer trusted to hold tiles. Our page on loose verge tiles explains what that means for the gable edge.
Ask any roofer you hire whether the work will follow BS 5534.
Clips and nails by position
Not every tile on a roof is fixed the same way. Position decides how much holding it needs.
- Tiles in the field, the main area of the slope, are held by their nibs and usually by nails, with extra fixing in some designs.
- Tiles at the eaves, the bottom edge, take wind from below and sit above the gutter, so they get stronger fixing.
- Tiles at the verge, the sloping edge of a gable, are exposed on one side and are held mechanically, with a dry verge trim where the system is fitted.
- Ridge and hip tiles are held by metal fixings or dry-fix parts, never left to mortar alone.
The exact pattern, meaning which tiles get nails, which get clips and how many, comes from the tile maker's fixing specification, and from BS 5534 for the site. Both vary by tile type, pitch and exposure, so a roofer reads the data sheet rather than working from habit.
That is why one tile type does not tell you how another should be fixed. Plain clay, interlocking concrete and slate each have different requirements.
A clip is a cheap part. The cost lies in the time to fit it, and that is minor compared with what a lifted tile costs once water has got in.
What this means for repairs and re-roofs
When a single tile is replaced, the new one should be fixed in the way its position needs, with a clip where the nail cannot be reached. A tile slipped back in unfixed will not stay.
On a re-roof, the fixing specification is part of the job, and you can reasonably ask for it. Which tiles are clipped, what the clips and nails are made of, and what standard the work follows are fair questions to put to any roofer before the work starts.
If your roof has tiles that rattle or shift in the wind, or a run of slipped tiles, the fixings may have failed. The battens and nails are checked from the roof space where access allows, and the findings are recorded and explained to you, along with what they mean for the repair.
Our quote is a single total that says whether the tiles are being re-fixed, replaced or both. Re-fixing sound tiles can cost less than re-covering, and it suits a roof whose tiles are good and whose fixings are not.
The pitched roofing hub lists the other tile repairs we take on for homes near Farnborough.
