Roofing materials are the load where people most often misjudge weight, and the consequences are more serious than with anything else on this list. A pallet of concrete tiles is a genuinely heavy item, and a van loaded on the assumption that tiles are like bricks will be over what it should be carrying long before the deck looks full. Roof tile van hire needs planning around payload rather than space. Anyone booking van hire in Warrington for a roofing job should get the weight from the merchant first.
Work in Weight, Not in Pallets
Merchants sell roofing by the pallet or by the square metre and both hide the weight. Concrete interlocking tiles, plain clay tiles and natural slate all differ substantially, and a full pallet of any of them is heavier than most people’s mental picture. Everything we run sits at three and a half tonnes gross vehicle weight or under, and that total includes the vehicle itself, so the payload available to you is a fraction of the number on the plate. Ask the merchant for the weight per pallet, tell them what you are driving, and let them load to it. Splitting a delivery across two lighter trips is entirely normal and far better than one that should not be on the road.
Why an Open Bed Is the Practical Choice
Roofing materials are usually loaded mechanically at the merchant, and a forklift needs to place a pallet onto the deck rather than reach into a box. The flatbed dropside van lets the yard load you in a single movement with the sides down, and at the other end you can hand tiles off from whichever side of the vehicle you can get closest to the scaffold. Tiles are also dusty and frequently damp, and an open deck sweeps clean afterwards in a way an enclosed load space does not.
Stacking Slates and Tiles Without Breakage
Slate and clay tiles are stacked on edge rather than piled flat, because a flat stack puts the whole weight onto the bottom pieces and they break. On edge, each tile is supported through its strongest plane. Keep pallets banded until they are where they need to be, and if you are handling loose tiles, stack them in short rows leaning slightly against each other rather than in tall columns. Concrete tiles are more forgiving but still chip on their edges, and a chipped nib is a tile that will not hang properly. Put something between the stack and the deck so tiles are not resting on bare steel.
Keeping Weight Forward and Low
With a load this dense, where it sits matters as much as how much there is. Keep the pallets forward over the axle rather than at the back of the deck, and keep the stack low rather than building it up. A heavy load carried high and rearward changes how the vehicle handles noticeably, particularly on roundabouts and in crosswinds out on the exposed motorway stretches. Strap everything down properly rather than relying on the weight to hold it in place, because a pallet that shifts on a dense load moves a great deal of mass at once.
Unloading Next to a Scaffold
Think about where the van will stand at the property before you set off. Tiles need to end up next to the scaffold or the hoist, and reversing a loaded vehicle up a driveway past a skip and a mixer is not something to work out on arrival. Consider whether the ground will take the weight, since a fully loaded van standing on a block paved drive or a soft verge can leave marks that are expensive to put right. Roofers working properties out towards Frodsham van hire bookings and the Cheshire villages often stage materials at the front and barrow round rather than risking a lawn.
Booking the Van and Merchant Timing
Builders merchants keep trade hours and load in the order people arrive, so an early start is worth having. Our depot on Tilley Street at the main entrance to Cockhedge Shopping Centre beside Asda is open Monday to Saturday from 8am to 4pm and closed on Sunday. Bring your photocard licence and a DVLA check code, no deposit is needed on most vehicles, and there is free secure parking on site. If your dates are a fortnight out, the ten per cent advance booking discount on selected vehicles may apply, and the terms are on our van hire special offers page.
Ordering Enough and Allowing for Breakage
Roofing orders should always include an allowance over the calculated area, because tiles break in transit, break in handling and break when they are cut to fit a valley or a hip. Running short at the end of a roof means another merchant trip and another van hire for a handful of tiles, which is an expensive way to save a small amount at the ordering stage. It is also worth checking that the whole order comes from the same batch, since clay and concrete tiles vary in shade between production runs and a patch of slightly different tiles is visible from the ground for the life of the roof. Ask the merchant to confirm batch consistency when you place the order rather than discovering the variation once they are on the roof.
Give us the tile type and the number of pallets and we will tell you honestly how many trips it takes. Call the depot on 01925 396 222 before you place the order.
