old or new slates?

[George (dicegeorge)]

old or new slates?

Following advice from this group I'm looking at getting a professional roofer to felt and reslate my roof.

There's a posh side which is visible from the road, and hidden bits which aren't.

My first thought was to use the old slates on the posh side, and new ones on the hidden bits of roof.

But if the old slates are from different bits of the roof, some from north facing, some from south facing, won't they be weathered different, and thus the posh side would have a splotchy chequerboard look.

So would I be better getting them to put new slates on the posh side, so all the slates look the same, and will weather together?

[dom]

I think roofers use a random pattern like brickies (drawing from several batches and mixing together to avoid any noticeable step changes).

[Lobster]

Why not buy more matching 'old' slates from a salvage yard? End of problem.

David

[mogga]

Sell the old ones to a recycler and get back cleaned ones?

[Dave Liquorice]

This is what we had done. New replacements for the ones that didn't survive being lifted went on the back. About 80% reuse of old slates.

Not as splotchy as a mix of new and old. If you are not going to get >50% reuse of old slates it suggests that they are in pretty poor nick and it maybe better to buy new(*) for the entire roof.

They will be weathered differently but being the same slate in the same location they will be pretty similar and very quickly become anyway. Far more so than new/old.

(*) "New" as in fresh out of the welsh mountains or "new" as in reclaimed. Reclaimed can be a bit iffy though, depending on how old and where they came from. >50years old and from an heavy industrial area they might not be in very good condition (acid attack), conversely >100 years old but from a rural area away from industry they could be fine.

[Mary Fisher]

The 'posh' side?

How much time do you spend looking at your roof? And how much time do you - or anyone - spend time looking at others' roofs?

Does it really matter??

A roof is to keep out weather, if it does that it's a good roof no matter what it looks like.

Except that I don't like pantiles and everyone round here who has new roofs chooses pantiles. We wouldn't. We'd re-use the old rosemarys and fill in with new or old ones.

Mary

[George (dicegeorge)]

I think when it comes to selling the house the first impression is important - which is roses, roof, etcetera

It's a once in a lifetime job so i want it to look good - not splotchy..

there's a house near here with white pointing in half the bricks and it looks awful (to me)

]

~ [g] ~ ~ george at dicenews dot com ~

~

[Mary Fisher]

I'd agree about the pointing (although some people like it) but who knows what's going to be important to a buyer?

It might be a pragmatist like me :-)

Mary

[The Natural Philosopher]

It won't last hiugh. Slates all wether down to the same in the end, and fairly quickly.

And some people like the chequerboard effect.