I'd guess almost certainly maintenance and upkeep. A tiled roof will sit there for decades with little or no maintenance requirement.
My last house had a felted roof on stramit board. Built in the late 60s, and the stramit was showing signs of water ingress at the apex and around the chimney. We moved coz I didn't want the expense of putting on a new roof.
Think a cellar is only for storage - coal, wine, etc. A basement is habitable. Hopefully.
Surely moving is far more expensive than a new roof - unless you wanted to move anyway?
Somneone on Grand Designs has used these, also.
Well, they *were*.
W-e-e-e-e-e-e-lll. They do get a fair number of problems with damp.
Looking at American DIY programs on TV I saw quite a few houses being built using boards for the roof and 'shingles' to cover them. The shingles taking the place of tiles or slates. The system seems to work okay but I did wonder about longevity. As others have remarked the slate or tile roof can last hundreds of years with only little maintenance. My own home is well over a hundred years old and apart from a few loose slates after a storm last year has had little attention. I can't see a wooden roof lasting more than a few years at most without needing repair.
I believe your idea was fairly popular in the former East Germany. where they put felt on boards on a pitched roof.
Cedar is good on a south facing gable for about 80 years, but abut 60% of that on a north facing gable.
The worst roof is felt, then thatch, then shingle, then corrugated iron, then tiles then slates, then lead/copper, as far as I am aware, longevity wise.
Yes. I've heard of roofs being covered in overlapping wooden splits. Just didn't know what wood. I've seen oak last untreated over a century on the south face of a building but that would be an expensive option
There are tiles made from resin and powder to mimic slates. Much lighter though and as yet no knowledge of their useful life. Our local buiding control office has warned against using them in some circumstances. Can't recall what they were though.
I've got an artificial slate roof here - it's very popular in London. It's about 20 years old and seems to be holding up pretty well. I dunno where they'd not be suitable as a replacement (unless a listed building etc) - they're pretty strong.
Something to do with the load bearing properties of the roof timbers as I recall. You need to get permission to change them anyway according to the leaflet in the library
The message from Alang contains these words:
20-25 years if your lucky.The message from "george (dicegeorge)" contains these words:
Cellar is completely below ground level
Basement only partially below ground level -- would expect to have windows above ground level.
They're lighter than slate - and much lighter than concrete or clay tiles. The problem used to be where people used cheaper concrete tiles to replace slate - the roof structure sometimes couldn't take the extra weight.
Of course if the original was, say, clay tiles, you may well need permission to change the look by going to imitation slate or whatever - perhaps in a conservation area.
No, it's better than that.
Cedar is somewhat anti-fungal, and rooves don't normally stay consistently wet.
I coudnt fine out how long my shingle roof had been up before I ripped thehouse down, but it was for sure longer than that.
On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:32:58 +0000, a certain chimpanzee, TheOldFellow randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
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Ever seen a McDonalds being built? I've seen two around here. Groundwork is finished, huge crane & several lorries turn up and complete finished walls are lifted into place. Never seen the roof go on, but I'd guess it was a similar idea.
From groundwork finish to complete building seems to be a matter of days rather than weeks or months.
I am told it has been done in fourteen days, but they normally allow four weeks from completion of floor slab to opening, to include a week of staff training.
The nearest thing I have seen is the assembly of a Huf Haus.
I suspect that Brits have an inbuilt bias against system building, partly because of the war-time prefabs, and partly because of the appalling 60's local authority housing.
For myself, I'd love a Huf House.
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