Re-roofing and roof replacement in Nairobi

A roof gets replaced for one of three reasons: the covering has reached the end of its life, the structure underneath has failed, or the owner wants a different material. They lead to quite different jobs, and the second one is the expensive surprise.

When repairing stops being worth it

There is no rule, but there are signals. A roof that has been patched in four places in two seasons is telling you something. So is widespread rust at the laps rather than in one exposed strip, a ridge line that visibly dips, or sheeting that has been walked on enough that the profile is flattened along the routes people use.

The honest test we apply is whether a repair has a reasonable chance of lasting several seasons. If it does not, a repair is not cheaper, it is just later.

What it costs

A complete roof on a three-bedroom bungalow typically runs KES 280,000 to 650,000 and above, materials and labour together. That is a wide band because the covering choice moves it more than anything else:

• Mabati sits at the lower end. Plain sheet runs roughly KES 400 to 1,200 per square metre supplied, depending on gauge, coating and brand, and box profile is sold by the metre at around KES 520 for gauge 30, KES 580 for gauge 28 and KES 720 for gauge 26.
• Stone-coated tile sits at the upper end, around KES 2,800 to 3,500 per square metre supplied, which is five to seven times the material cost of mabati.
• Labour for the covering itself runs about KES 600 to 1,200 per square metre.
• Structural timber carpentry, where it is needed, adds roughly KES 800 to 2,500 per square metre.

Those figures are set out in full, by gauge and by brand, on mabati and roofing sheet prices. They are market ranges for Kenya gathered from published supplier and contractor sources, reviewed September 2026. They are not a quotation, and a quote for your roof will differ according to pitch, access, span and what we find when the old covering comes off.

Gauge, which is the decision people get wrong

With mabati the temptation is to save on gauge. Gauge 30 is thinner and cheaper than gauge 26, and on a roof that will be walked on for maintenance, or that carries a solar heater or a water tank, the thinner sheet dents and then holds water at the dent. The saving on a three-bedroom roof between gauge 30 and gauge 26 is real but modest against the cost of the labour to fit either, and the heavier sheet is the one we would put on our own houses.

The structure underneath

Once the covering is off, the framing is visible for the first time in years, and this is where a replacement can change shape. Rotten purlin ends at the eaves, rafters wet from a long-standing leak, and fascia that has gone soft behind the guttering are all common. We would rather find it and tell you than sheet over it.

Note that most modern Nairobi roofs are framed in steel rather than timber, and steel fabricators handle that side. Where the frame is timber, the carpentry is ours, and where it is steel we work to it.

What a replacement should include

A roof is not only sheets. A complete job covers the framing where it needs attention, underlay where the design calls for it, the covering, ridge and hip caps, flashings at every abutment, valley gutters, fascia and barge boards, guttering and downpipes, and making good inside where ceilings were damaged. A quote that covers only sheets and labour is not a cheaper roof, it is an incomplete one, and the difference appears later as extras.