D-I-Y Zinc roofing-or-come on you plumbers.

[tom patton]

Hi all. I m moving ahead with my D-I-Y zinc pyramid roof. Incentive-60 square metres standing seam zinc laid on 6.1 metre square pyramid roof approx .8 metre high-material cost- profiled sheets- clips- solder- forming tools £1000-laid professionally price £90-£100 per square metre. From what I can see on the excellent

site the sheets are held by clips mounted on wooden deck-standing seam folded by hand tools-with a minimum of soldering-looks fiddly but do-able anyway at a saving of up to £5000 Im doing it. I would appreciate any advice from someone who has experience in this stuff.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've got a ground floor only bay window with castellated stonework to the top and a zinc 'tray' forming the roof. The probably 100+ year old zinc had perforated. Something like 2 metres wide. Using the old one as a pattern I made a new one - with only school taught metal working skills, like making a dustpan out of tinplate. Of course with this relatively small size no expansion joints etc were needed. But it's a fairly easy material to work with - IMHO easier than lead because of ease of soldering.

At a pro quote of 100 quid a square metre with a total price of 5000 quid it's well worth learning the skills.

[tom patton]

You said it!. Its been incredibly difficult getting any info-it has taken a lot of phoning to get someone to supply the profile sheet. Its sold in 100 "rolls" so getting a few profiled sheets seems to be impossible--this seems a classic restrictive practice to me connected to £100 per square metre laid.I suppose if I was making that sort of money I would protect my golden goose!!. You soldered the zinc Dave--with ordinary flux and solder. Did you use a blowtorch-butane-propane mix plumbers torch-massive soldering bolt?.

[John Rumm]

I watched some roofers making up a zinc box gutter. They used Bakers Fluid for flux - painted neatly down the joins. Then used a blowtorch with a soldering head on it, and heavy guage solder bars. Seemed pretty straight forward.

[tom patton]

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup. Baker's Fluid and a Camping Gaz blowlamp with bolt attached is what I used. And engineer's solder.

[tom patton]

I m in the process of buying 300 kilos of zinc profile sheet-enough for 65 square metres.100 kilos cost £285+VAT per 100 kilos.Its sold in 100 kilo "rolls" so no chance of buying a little bit for the gutter etc. I will keep you posted.