Summerhouse roof

Son's new garden has a really lovely summerhouse with three triangular roof panels at each end and front and back squarish panels between them.

The roof panels are made of quite posh tongue and groove and between each panel there is a decorative vertical piece of sculpted wood making an attractive and strong looking structure.

Inside, there is power and light, all looking very professional in pyro. The roof has no felt or anything and the whole wooden structure has been paonyed at some time with what looks like one of the water based garden shed paints - the type the peels off everywhere I've used it. There have been roof leaks in the recent massive rainfall.

Because of the roof structure and decorative nature, anything like felt would be very difficult, so we were wondering about some sort of heavy duty flexible paint to slop on and hope it would run into the cracks and gaps and seal the roof. It would need to be a more appropriate colour than black or whit and access to the front is OK, but the back is more of a problem because of trees and a wall.

What paint or any better ideas?

Reply to
Bill
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It looks as though the previous owner has tried this, but it looks impractical to apply. At the joints between the roof panels, there are all the other structural bits of wood. The water gets in and drips out somewhere else inside, of course

I've found a picture of a similar one at

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it comes out.

Reply to
Bill

In message , Bill writes

OK, try

formatting link
see the second of the close up photos from the box at the bottom of the page to see the roof.

Reply to
Bill

For anyone that CBA to navigate the site, I presume you mean this one?

Reply to
Andy Burns

Yes, that's the one. I really must learn how to post a long url like that. I altered the formatting to take in the whole url on my earlier post, but it still came out chopped.

Reply to
Bill

Probably works for me because I allow Thunderbird to post using "format=flowed" text, some people object to it, but has its advantages such as not knackering long URLs and seems not to break anything to horrendously ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

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You can get bitumastic paint in colours (green, red, grey etc.) which might work as you want but I think it would look a bit of a mess.

I think you would be better off protecting your investment with some kind of more conventional roofing such as 'Decra' (used on mobile homes/ caravans) or felt tiles which can look very good if done well - often used on house elevations

Cic..

Reply to
Cicero

Try putting the url inside >

Reply to
Camdor

inside is sufficient.

Reply to
Andy Burns

Isn't the basic problem going to be movement of the wood with temperature and humidity? OK it *looks* very nice, but I don't think I would try to make a roof like that. Cedar shingles as used in North America work because they have a big overlap, like slates.

Reply to
newshound

In message , newshound writes

Yes, that's exactly why there is a problem. That and the fact that there are occasional tiny little gaps where you can see daylight through. But most of the water comes through down the joint between the roof pieces rather than through the tongue and groove joints.

Also, it does look nice and women are involved in the approvals process. It's also quite mature and came with the house, and we have many problems on many fronts. (The mower is now fine except for the front roller, which I've brought home here to attack with a bigger hammer, and we haven't even started on the Billy Goat hoovery thing)

My gut feeling was to try to mould covering pieces to follow the decorative joints using fibreglass and some resin, and then perhaps some sort of tiles over the tongue and groove areas, but this would require skill to do well and to end up looking good. Plus a lot of time. Which is why son and I ended up hoping that some sort of flexible when dry, gloopy paint might do the trick.

Reply to
Bill

I would have thought that decorator's caulk or mastic of a near enough colour would do you before applying the outdoor wood treatment of your preference.

S
Reply to
Spamlet

I'd be tempted to investigate the possibility of removing the entire roof, laying a false t&g roof and felting it. Then reconstruct the original roof over the top. I have constructed similar summerhouses/gazebos and I don' think it would be too dificult. I think applying anything on top of the existing roof would be in danger of ruining the entire appearance of the summerhouse.

Neil

Reply to
Slainte

You could always use tinyurl

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Reply to
soup

That's sort of the theory of bitumen coatings for old guttering and flat roofs. But it's going to look awful and often doesn't last very long. I suppose the "anti burglar" paint which stays wet and slippery might be an option, but I don't know if it comes in suitable colours.

I'm with Neil, but you can bet it was designed for ease of putting up, not for ease of taking down. Is there access from underneath? I can think of various ways you might try to seal that side, but then you are eventually going to get rot in the tongues and grooves and other places where water collects.

Reply to
newshound

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