Hi,
Is there no alternative to slates or tiles when it's time for a new roof? Surely there must be a lighter and cheaper synthetic option nowadays?
- posted
5 years ago
Roofing Materials
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- posted
5 years ago
Yes, but getting it past the BCO will be a problem.
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- posted
5 years ago
Synthetic slates are a thing...
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- posted
5 years ago
Artificial slates have been popular round here for many years. Seem to last pretty well. Slightly easier to fit as less skill needed to cut them where needed.
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- posted
5 years ago
They are very popular amongst dodgy roofers who know that original victorian slates in good nick can be resold for more than the cost of new synthetic ones.
Plenty of unsuspecting homeowners have been caught out this way, and I suspect some don't even know that their original slates could have been re-used on their own house.
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- posted
5 years ago
Are you one who doesn't get a few quotes before having any such work done? And then chooses the lowest price from an obvious cowboy? Other have more sense...
And just who said the roof being replaced used slates? Mine had what was called double pan tiles.
Repairing an original slate roof using matching tiles can be very costly. You may not even be able to find a decent match. Early slate roofs had no felt, so have to be stripped totally. You may also want to add decent controlled ventilation for the roof - especially where insulation has been added.
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- posted
5 years ago
Oddly, many don't
if the damage is extensive. Mostly it's not.
bzzt
NT
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- posted
5 years ago
The Victorian houses around here were build 125+ years ago for working men and their families. The slates used weren't of the quality you'd expect to find on a Gentleman's London residence[1]. After 125+ years a large proportion of most which remain are delaminating, cracked, have enlarged nail holes etc. I saw how many slates were sold on for re-use when our roof was replaced c10 years ago. It was a quarter at most.
[1] from the quotes we got foir "real" slates, there seems today to still be different standards within BS EN 12326 with different lifetimes- Vote on answer
- posted
5 years ago
When I had the roof replaced on my 1905 property many of the slates were in a very poor condition with delamination edges crumbling. Only about a third were salvaged for re-use and even those probably only suitable for patching up an older roof where matching of the material was important.
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- posted
5 years ago
125 years? I'd call that pretty damn good for a roofing material!!!
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- posted
5 years ago
The slate must be of better quality round here. A friend's 1880s house is s till on its original slates (bar a few), and they're in fine shape. The tin gles are slowly increasing though.
NT
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- posted
5 years ago
True. Andrew obviously being one of those.
The subject was a replacement roof, not repairs.
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- posted
5 years ago
True. But also means they'd have little resale value.
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- posted
5 years ago
My brothers house in the NE of Scotland still has most of the original slates. And it's closer to 200 than 100 years old. But the roof construction is different, with tongue and groove boarding under the slates - presumably to carry the weight of snow.
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- posted
5 years ago
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NT
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- posted
5 years ago
Tongue and groove was common 200 years ago, both my parents (Hertfordshire) and our house (Warwickshire) of a similar period have it.
Jonathan
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- posted
5 years ago
They'd obviously started building down to a price round here in Victorian days. You could see sky through the roof at the right angle. ;-)