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The Traditional House Under Threat?
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Beware of Roofers ! My house, built in 1915 is unusual in that it has a deep pitched clay tiled roof to the front half, with a shallower pitched slate rear half. This distinction is continued in that to the rear and side of the house sash windows are found, but the windows at the front are almost pre-cursors for the 1930's style windows but with clear Arts and Crafts roots in their styling,. This lends the house a quite distinct difference in appearance front to rear. I digress, due to recent windy weather yet more of the slates off the back of my house slipped off. The roof was clearly suffering from 'nail sickness'. This is a condition whereby the fixing nails (usually copper) fatigue and shear. The trouble is most home owners assume that the slates need replacing also. This is rarely the case, slates can last 150, 200 years, work out how old your house, do the sums. What is normally required is for the original slates to be re-lifted, possible laths replaced where necessary (not convinced all need replacing, my roof has no under-felting, so it has been able to breath all these years? And although we are only talking laths, I suspect the quality of the old wood is greatly superior to the new wood). So care is needed all the way in agreeing to what a roofer suggests. They have a big advantage over you, they 'know all about these things' they assume you do not ! The trouble with many tradesmen is they are always trying to take short cuts, time is money (has it really changed?). Roofers will usually suggest roof re-furbishments, that suits them, rather than you, and certainly spells disaster for of your house character.... just look around and see what's happening. By looking around you will see a familiar sight, clay replaced by crude concrete, slates replaced joke imitation epoxy/slate dust or even pure man made slates, ghastly things. But notice how roofers carefully pack away original slates, the ones they told you were not worth re-using. I was told by my local roofer recently that if I wanted to re-use my slates, he would have to re-hole them. I could not understand why and should have queried him further. So I made independent enquiries. A slate salvage firm informed me that if the original copper nails had been used, re-holing would not be necessary, since the slates could be pulled up with little hole damage. They must know they salvage hundreds of thousands every year! So I guess as my roof is original it must have copper nails, and that many of the slates must be salvageable? Also it is rather odd that if messy, time consuming re-holing is required, why then do roofers seem so happy take away original slates. This has happened with my neighbours roof, by the very roofer I have just written about, who I consider to be one of the fair and decent ones! Whilst all the above has been going on, my neighbour, who had his roof done in horrible synthetic slate, noticed me surveying my roof the other day. He enquired as to what I was doing, I explained that I was thinking of having the roof done. He then had the gall to enquire as to whether I was going to 'match' his side! When people make annoying comments, I do not hold back... I simply threw it back at him the same: why did he not think about matching when he had his side done! Neighbours, don't you just love them?
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