New roofs

A covering for work that is still being built

Choose “new roof or new construction” on the form when the slope does not yet have its finished sheet or tile: a new build, anextension, a commercial shell. Choosereplacement when you are taking an old covering off. The labour overlaps — both jobs involve laps, ridges, gutters, and a week when the building is vulnerable — but a new roof does not start with rusted nails and a ceiling full of stains. It starts with a structure that must be ready to receive it.

Micheletti Construction treats that as one company’s problem. The managing director’s public brief is civil and building trades, and the roof is part of the building. Handing the covering to a stranger after the blockwork is a common way to discover that the outlets were never really drawn.

Pitch, overhang, outlet

Pitch decides how fast water leaves and how the sheet is fixed. A shy pitch on a long-span roof holds water at the laps. An aggressive pitch on a tall Lagos house catches more wind. Overhangs shade walls and also become the place gutters either work or dump water at the foundation. Outlets and downpipes have to have somewhere honest to go. On a tight Lagos plot that may be a short run to a street that already floods. On an Abuja estate it may be a channel the estate already built. On an Ibadan slope it may be the compound of the house below. None of those is a detail to invent after the fascia is on.

Penetrations — tanks, vents, solar frames — should be drawn while the roof is new. Cutting them in later is how a sound sheet becomes a repair job in its second rainy season. If you know you want equipment on the roof, say so in the notes even if the brand is undecided.

Weather while the deck is open

A new roof has a window when the deck is on and the sheet is not. That window is the risk. Lagos rainfall is high and the season is long, with a lull in August that should not be mistaken for a finish. Ibadan’s pattern is the southwest one: March to October, a lull, a second peak. Programming the covering to close before that second peak is ordinary good sense. Abuja concentrates rain later, in a single season that climate tables show peaking in August, after very dry months. Starting the roof in harmattan can be kind, provided dust is not sealed into the laps and the estate will let materials in.

Coastal salt still applies to a brand-new Lagos roof. A fastener and a cut edge on Ikoyi or Lekki are a specification, not a maintenance surprise for year three. Inland Ibadan and Abuja worry more about heat, dust, and the quality of the lap than about sea air. Themetal roofing page stays with those material differences. Tiles remain an option where the structure was designed to carry them. We will not quietly swap a tile roof for a sheet, or the reverse, because one of them is easier to buy this week.

What the form should carry

Storeys, city, neighbourhood, whether the walls are already up, and whether drawings show a pitch. Say if the building is a house, a small block, or a shed — the property types are on the form for that reason. Access for long sheets is a practical limit: a gate in Magodo or Lokogoma, a narrow street in Yaba, a hill road in Ibadan. We do not publish a rate for “new roofing.” Request a quote and, if the whole building is in scope, say that too so the reply is not written as if only the sheet existed.