What Is a Hipped Roof?

The shape

On a gable roof, two slopes meet at the ridge and the ends are filled with walls. On a hipped roof, the ends slope too. The result is four planes: two long ones and two shorter, often triangular ones at the ends. Where each pair of planes meets at an external corner, a sloping line forms, running from the ridge down to the eaves. That line is the hip.

A simple hipped roof has one ridge, shorter than the building, and four hips. Variants include the half-hip, where the top of the end is a short gable and the lower part slopes, and the dutch gable, where a small gable sits above a hip. Many houses built between the 1920s and the 1960s have full hipped roofs, as do bungalows and larger detached homes.

How a hipped roof is built

The structure uses hip rafters running diagonally from the corner of the wall plate up to the ridge, and shorter jack rafters running from the hip to the eaves. This is a more complex frame than a simple gable. The covering follows the same diagonal, and tiles are cut to fit along each hip. A trade term for a cut tile in this position is a hip cut, and a clean one is a sign of care.

The hip itself is covered by hip tiles, shaped like ridge tiles, which are bedded on mortar or fixed dry. At the bottom, a hip iron or hip tile starter holds the last tile in place so it does not slip. Our guide to hip tiles and dry hip systems describes the fixing options.

Hipped roofs on Basingstoke-area homes

You will see plenty of hipped roofs in the estates of the south, particularly on interwar and post-war semis, bungalows and larger detached houses. They suit corner plots and exposed sites, where the sloping ends keep the profile low. Many have been extended with a rear or side addition, which adds a valley where the new roof meets the old, and that is a place to check for lead or GRP lining that has worn.

Because the hip lines are long and exposed, they are where the roof shows its age first. Cracks in the bedding, gaps under hip tiles and a hip iron that has rusted away are all common sights on a roof of fifty years or more.

Strengths

The biggest advantage is stability. With every side sloping inwards, the roof does not present a flat wall to the wind, and gusts slide up and over. The roof is also braced in two directions by the hips. That is why hipped roofs are favoured on exposed sites and in areas with high winds.

The overhang is also equal on all four sides, which shelters the walls from rain. Eaves run all the way round, so there are no exposed verges to lose tiles in a storm.

The drawbacks

More corners mean more joints. Each hip is a line where water can get in if the bedding fails or a tile slips. The valleys, where an extension roof meets the main roof, add to that. The loft space is also awkward, because the sloping ends cut into it, so conversions are harder and often need a dormer or a hip-to-gable alteration.

The cost is higher too. More timber, more cuts and more ridge and hip tiles make a hipped roof more expensive to build and to re-cover than a plain gable roof. Our answer on what a gable roof is gives the other side of the comparison.

Hips, valleys and extensions

Many hipped houses carry an extension, and the new roof meets the old at a valley or a hip junction. The lining there is hidden under the tiles, so a leak can run a long way before it shows. Ask for the junction to be photographed whenever work is done, and keep the pictures for later reference. A hipped roof also has more tile cutting than other shapes, and badly cut tiles at the hip let wind and rain in.

Maintenance

The hips take the same weather as the ridge, and the mortar bedding eventually cracks. Look for hip tiles that have shifted, gaps in the pointing and tiles that have dropped near the eaves. When we survey, we check each hip from the ridge to the eaves, and photograph the bedding and the hip iron. Repair might be re-bedding, replacing a few tiles or converting to a dry system. See the pitched roofing page for our wider work on tiled roofs.