New roof cost in the West Midlands

Birmingham and the Black Country hold dense Victorian and Edwardian terraces alongside some of the largest post-war municipal estates in the country, much of it now owner-occupied. Cavity walls are the norm in the interwar and later stock, so insulation work is generally cheaper here than in the stone-built regions. Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire are rural and older, with timber framing common.

Close to the UK average for rainfall, sheltered from the worst of the Atlantic weather by the Welsh mountains. The Shropshire hills and the Staffordshire moorlands are wetter and colder than the conurbation. Nothing here is extreme, which makes the region a reasonable guide to typical UK weathering.

Extensive Green Belt rings the conurbation and limits what can be built outward, so extensions and loft conversions carry more weight here than new outbuildings. The black-and-white timber-framed towns of Shropshire and Herefordshire hold heavy concentrations of listed buildings, where repair in traditional materials is usually the only route, and Ironbridge Gorge is a World Heritage Site with correspondingly tight control. Birmingham and Coventry both have conservation areas covering substantial areas of terraced housing, where roofing materials and window styles have to be matched.