''It's a bit of a bummer,'' he said.
The couple bought the house less than a year ago and were in the process of renovating it.
''We'd just had the roof done and now . . . It was a little DIY project house. My partner and I, it was our first house together.''
It would take some time to get the roof repaired but it could have been much worse, Mr Wilkinson said.
''They reckon there's not much damage inside. It's mostly smoke damage so that's the good part. It's just a bummer the fire spread across the roof.''
Mr Wilkinson's mother-in-law, Anita, lives in the house next door and saw it all unfold.
''A guy had turned up outside and he was tooting his horn. I could smell it but people have fires all the time around here. I turned and looked out my window and I could see smoke coming from my daughter's house,'' she said.
''It was just smoke coming out of the roof. I didn't actually see flames until the fire brigade got the roof off.''
Once the fire service had arrived, she called her daughter at work to alert her.
Maketu fire chief Shane Beech said it took about an hour to put the fire out.
''I think the damage was kept to a minimum. The fire was basically contained to the ceiling cavity,'' he said.
''We had to rip the roofing iron off to get access to the cavity.''
Mr Beech said the blaze was not suspicious and was probably an electrical fire started by wiring in the ceiling.
