Pitched roof

[Bolted]

I currently have an awful kitchen extension with a monopitched roof, that was built by the cowboys from hell and has no redeeming features at all. It has to go. If I have to replace it, I'd like it to be bigger, as it is currently a 6m wide by 2.8m deep (i.e. towards garden) galley kitchen which doesn't really suit a quite big semi.

The neighbouring semi has a flat roofed extension, but I would very much like to avoid this from a practical perspective as well as aesthetic. The difficulty is that to extend the depth of the kitchen further into what is now the garden means that the current monopitch roof can't be replicated, as there is insufficient height under the first floor window. There would be enough height for a pitched roof with the gable end pointing out towards the garden and the slopes heading down toward the side of the house (on the detached side) and the next-door flat roof extension on the other side.

My question is, is the a usual way of dealing with this situation? The slope that abuts the neighbour's wall will need a draining htvalley at rig angles to the main slope, so that the water flows down toward the garden. Can anyone help with how is this done, because I am finding it hard to envisage?

[Rick]

When I drive arround, I look at peoples houses, we had no idea how to build our doorway till we found a nice one the other week. give it a try, it may solve your problem.

Also worth a try is to "interview" a couple of architects, you'll need one anyways to sort out the building regs submission.

Rick

[Malcolm Race]

I recently had an extension built from scratch and the architect said that to have a mono-pitched roof (using tiles which matched the existing tiles - my spec.) needed a layer of 'onduline sheeting' (a corrugated plastic sheet) between the rafters and the tiles as otherwise rain could blow under the tiles as the pitch of the roof was less than specified for the design of (common Redland) concrete tiles. IIRC the structure of the roof is (attempt at ASCIIart)

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Tiles

--------------------- battens across the roof ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ onduline sheet

--------------------- battens across roof and felt

HTH

Malcolm

PS so far in 9 months it ts waterproof

[Owain]

There's nothing wrong with flat roofs if they're done and maintained properly. (Well, I know ....)

The extensions will look much better if they are roofed as a pair (I assume they will share a party wall but not necessarily have the same ground plan) in a material harmonious with the main house roof.

I think the best thing here would be to have a mansard-style slated/tiled steeply pitched perimeter roof around both extensions, visually tying them together, with a central flat area. This will avoid the height problem of a full pitch roof, and only require a moderate superstructure over the neighbour's structural flat roof. It will also work with a complex ground plan. If your neighbour does not want to extend (!) his kitchen out to meet yours, the plan of the roof could be taken out as far from the house as yours, to give him a covered external area which could be 'shedded' as non-habitable accommodation at a later date.

Internally the kitchen could have a coombed ceiling up into the mansard, giving extra internal height, or a suspended ceiling giving increased insulation, downlighters etc. The mansarded part of the roof might be a convenient place for extractor fan outlets or boiler flues, using apprpriate terminals, taking them above head height and reducing their visual impact.

Owain