Roof paint vs roof restoration in Hobart - different jobs.
A roof paint and a roof restoration aren't two prices for the same job. They're two different jobs that look identical for the first six months. On a Hobart tile roof - most of the post-war housing stock through Glenorchy, Moonah, Lindisfarne and the eastern shore - the difference between them is whether you buy three years or fifteen. Here's how to tell what your roof actually needs.
What each job actually involves.
The roof paint - what's in the can and on the roof.
A roof paint is a three-stage cosmetic job. Stage one: high-pressure wash to remove mildew, moss and chalked-off pigment from the previous coat. Stage two: a primer sealer to bind down any remaining oxidised surface. Stage three: a two-coat acrylic membrane topcoat - usually Dulux Acratex, Astec or Nutech depending on the colour selection. That's the entire job. There's no structural work, no replacement, and no addressing of what's under the tiles.
Done well, a roof paint will hold colour for 8-10 years on a sound Hobart tile roof. Done over failed pointing or broken tiles, the coating fails locally where water tracks through joints, and you see dark wet patches reappearing within two summers.
The roof restoration - structural plus cosmetic.
A full restoration adds three or four stages before the paint job even starts. First, full inspection of the ridge line and hip capping - every cap is checked for movement, every pointing run for cracking, every tile for hairline fracture. Second, broken tiles are replaced from salvage stock or matched-profile new stock. Third, loose ridge caps are re-bedded with a fresh mortar bed. Fourth, the entire ridge and hip pointing is removed and replaced with flexible pointing compound - a polymer-modified product that moves with the building rather than cracking when it gets cold. Only then does the wash-prime-coat sequence run.
Why Hobart's climate makes the pointing question critical.
Hobart sits at the southernmost point of any mainland Australian city and gets a winter freeze-thaw cycle that Sydney and Brisbane don't. On a clear winter night with a sky-temperature reading well below ambient air, roof surface temperature can drop below zero even when air temperature is sitting at 3-4°C. That's normal for July and August across Hobart, the eastern shore and especially the higher suburbs - South Hobart, Mount Stuart, parts of West Hobart.
Rigid mortar pointing - the traditional cement-sand-oxide mix that went on every Hobart tile roof built before 1990 - does not handle freeze-thaw. Each cycle of freezing water expanding inside hairline cracks slowly opens the cracks wider. Twenty cycles per winter, over thirty years, and the pointing is structurally finished. You can paint over the top of it and from ground level it looks beautiful. The next winter rain finds the cracks and the roof leaks at the ridge.
Flexible pointing - a polymer-modified mortar - moves with the building and doesn't fatigue the same way. That's what every restoration we do uses. It's not optional on a Hobart roof.
How to read the quote line items.
The trap is the headline price. A "paint your roof from $2,800" quote in the local paper is essentially always paint-only - wash, prime, two coats, no structural work, no warranty engagement on the substrate. On a 1970s tile roof in Moonah where the pointing is at end-of-life, that's two summers of looking nice followed by leaks. Always check the line items.
A genuine restoration quote will explicitly list: ridge cap inspection and re-bedding allowance, broken tile replacement allowance (usually a number-of-tiles count), flexible pointing run-metres (the total ridge and hip metres being re-pointed), and then the wash-prime-coat sequence. If those four line items aren't on the quote, it's a paint job dressed up as a restoration.
One honest middle path: a hybrid quote where the painter inspects the roof, identifies the pointing as sound, prices the paint-only job, and explicitly states in writing that the pointing was assessed as sound on inspection. That's a valid paint-only quote on the right roof. The wrong roof is one where nobody actually inspected the pointing.
System warranty - the real number.
Manufacturer system warranties on roof coatings (Dulux Acratex, Astec, Nutech) are conditional on a defined-sound substrate. Read the warranty terms and you'll find a clause specifying that the underlying tile, bedding and pointing must be structurally sound at application. If they're not, and the coating fails because water came through a pointing joint, the manufacturer warranty doesn't cover the resulting paint failure. You'd be left with the installer's workmanship warranty - typically five years - and only for the application defects, not the underlying cause.
A full restoration engages the manufacturer system warranty properly. With flexible pointing and replaced tiles, the substrate is now defined-sound, and you get the 10-year manufacturer system warranty on top of the installer's workmanship warranty. The dollar difference between paint-only and restoration on a typical Hobart tile roof is usually around 40-60% extra. The warranty difference is roughly three-times the protection. That's the real economics of the decision.
We work to AS/NZS 2311 on the coating side and to the manufacturer system specification on the structural side, and we lodge the system warranty paperwork on every restoration so the homeowner has the document in hand at completion. Registered with Consumer Building and Occupational Services Tasmania, Master Painters Tasmania members.
Common questions about roof paint and restoration in Hobart.
What's the difference between paint and restoration?
A roof paint is just the topcoat - clean, prime, coat. A roof restoration includes the structural work underneath: re-bedding loose ridge capping, re-pointing the ridge and hip line with flexible compound, replacing broken tiles, and only then doing wash-prime-coat. On Hobart tile roofs the bedding and pointing are usually the actual problem.
How do I tell if I need a restoration?
Three checks: walk the perimeter and look for cracked or missing pointing on the ridge line; look for displaced or broken tiles in the field; get into the roof space on a wet day and look for active drips or water staining on rafters. One stain under the ridge is a definitive restoration call.
What does a cheap roof-paint quote leave out?
Almost always the bedding and pointing inspection, the broken-tile replacement allowance, and the workmanship warranty on the structural elements. Hobart's freeze-thaw cycle accelerates rigid mortar pointing failure compared to mainland cities - always check the line items.
What's the warranty difference?
Paint-only gets you the installer's workmanship warranty (typically 5 years) but the manufacturer system warranty isn't engaged if the substrate isn't sound. A full restoration with flexible pointing gets you a manufacturer-backed 10-year system warranty plus workmanship - roughly three times the protection for around 40-60% more upfront cost.
Want an honest read on your roof?
We'll do a 32-point inspection at quote stage, get you onto the right path - paint or full restoration - and put the rationale in writing. Hobart-wide: Glenorchy, Moonah, Lindisfarne, Bellerive, Kingston, New Town. AS/NZS 2311 workmanship, manufacturer-backed system warranty.