How to Build a Roof 

Dear I also agree with you.

Ha! Good luck up there!

I have spent months researching into building sheds and found an awesome resource at Wilfs Shed Formula (check it out on google) +Andy Cooper

And

Glad it helped!

Hahahaha! Happy to help! ;-)

LOL , I wouldn't advise you to DIY your roof . You can definitely create yourself a lot of stress otherwise.

There seems to be some concern (mostly among former roofers) that plastic hardware fades, decomposes or is damaged by sunlight or weathering over time. It does, of course, depend on the quality of the product and the installation in the first place. Many of the opinions on plastic / moulded verges are based on products that were introduced many years ago, rather than modern up-to-date systems. Both plastic verges and more traditional cement verges have pros and cons. Essentially, both are designed first to prevent wind and water ingress, and secondly to look nice. Your ability to repair or replace either one might be the deciding factor on which one you choose.

Ha! The algorithm works! Thanks Ashley :)

same here :) , but really enjoyed the video

Thanks, John

🤣

100%

choppy249 thanks for your interesting comment. for info. i have a cement verge 25 years old cement decayed and thus when removing it found that the roof battens were decayed back from barge about 75 mm especially at the lower end of the verge near the eaves. the tiles are sound but i was interested in the comment about lifting by wind. i have put 4 copper tingles on the lowest four courses verge tiles. i intend to replace the cement sand bedding but adding boiled linseed oil to the mix (it sets rock solid) . trouble is i am having difficulty getting cement sand because of corona lockdown. i am also considering trying to waterproof the verge on first two rows trying to keep damp away from edges.

frank crouch . Sorry to hear you have trouble with your verge but I am a little confused as to what type of verge it actually is . You mentioned the verge tiles but then you mention copper tingles which are primarily used on slate roofs , so is it a slate roof or a plain tile roof or interlocking tiles ? It would be so easy for me to diagnose the problem with it if I could see it but it is hard for me to offer any advice to you without more information . If it is slates then there are a number of different reasons that could explain the problems you have found . You also mention the barge board so are your tiles / slates overhanging this sufficiently ? Normally you would have an undercloak on top of the barge board , fixed under the battens as a base for the cement verge which the tiles / slates can then bed snuggly onto . This undercloak should normally overhang the gable by about 2 inches or so . If it does not overhang enough then rain can penetrate beneath it over time and will cause problems . One of the problems in some slate roofs is that people sometimes do not use an undercloak and bed the cement straight onto the gable wall or worse onto the wood barge and wall . Also amazingly they will not even bother to overhang the slates sometimes . This is a recipe for disaster as the cement will fail and crumble much quicker than normal and rain will soon start to penetrate . In fact the condition of your verge with rotting battens and decaying cement is more often than not found with this type of slate roof . Normally you would not expect a cement verge to decay badly after only 25 years or so nor should the roof battens be rotting either so I am puzzled by what has happened here . As I said it would be very easy for me to tell if I was up on the verge , I have repaired literally hundreds over the years but without seeing it , I can’t really help that much . It could just be shoddy workmanship which I have come across a lot over the years but if you know what you are doing as a rooftiler then it is not that difficult to do a very sound job . The basics of tiling a roof and ensuring that it is watertight and sound are fairly straightforward , as long as you don’t try to cut corners . Unfortunately some people do . One other reason why a cement verge might fail prematurely is if you use the incorrect sand / cement ratio . For all roofing work , i.e verges , ridge , hips and valleys , the ratio should be 3 to 1 . I have known some people to use bricklayers cement on certain aspects of a roof which is totally wrong and inadequate . The ratio for that is 4 , 5 or even 6 to 1 which is no good at all for roofing work . It is OK for underpointing the undercloak perhaps but that is all . I have found in repairing slate verges over the years that sometimes bricklayers cement has been used for this , probably because with slates much less cement is used and the tiler thinks it will be adequate , but it is not . Anyhow I shan’t ramble on . You asked about tile lifting I think on verges with the wind . Usually this is more of a problem with interlocking tiles on the left hand verge as the left hand verge tile is not held down by its adjacent tile . It just sits on top of it . The tile above holds the top of the verge tile down but the bottom of the tile is prone to wind lift . You can often hear the tiles rattling on very windy days as the wind buffets them up and down and eventually can work them loose . This is why you often see a verge clip in the cement on left hand verges holding the bottom of the tile down , but not so much on right hand verges , unless the roof is in a particularly wind prone area, like the coast etc. Slates and plain tile roofs are usually much less prone to wind lift as there is more coverage and weight on the top half of the tile thus holding down the bottom half more securely . But in strong gales even they will be affected . Also strong winds and frequent gales seem to becoming more the norm these days so more attention is needed for your roof than previously . When I first started out roofing the standard for most roofs regarding tile fixing was just perimeter fixing . That is just the eaves course the top course and the verges to be nailed or clipped . Then it was middle fixing too , then perhaps every fifth course , then a few years later every third course , then alternative courses , then by the time I finished it was every tile on the roof to be fixed , sometimes with a nail and tile clip too . Some roofs that I used to lay in 15 to 20 minutes were now taking over two hours or so . Still that’s a sign of the times I guess . One last thought before I go . If you are having trouble finding some cement / sand . Is there a Brookers or some such place near you ? We have one nearby where I live and they have been open for business as usual during this lockdown . It’s worth giving them a try if you can . Anyhow good luck with your verge and sorry I can’t be of more help .

choppy249 thanks for your detailed reply it is greatly appreciated. I have hopefully improved the verge construction and i try to explain further... double roman tiles left hand verge lower end bottom 5 courses (over an unheated garage ). original construction roman tiles on battens on felt , cavity walls asbestos undercloak cavity closer projecting about 75mm . tiles bedded in mortar (mix.??) with flaunching from asbestos to side and top of tile. The initial fault was identified when the flaunching cracked and began to fall in small (say 150 mm ) sections at various places at lower end (wetter) end. the garage is an extension about 25 years old. adjoining properties have had marley plastic and i notice that sometimes the verge course tiles have had to be replaced (indicating that fixer has made access to top of wall and end of battens). i decided not to go for plastic and have a go at rebedding in mortar. i started at lower end keeping the tiles on but able to lift them and found bedding not bonded to either underside of tiles nor to the asbestos undercloak , took all these pieces out ,lifted tiles and rebedded in mortar after painting the underside of the tile with pvc bonding . i have then turned the bedding into a flaunching up the side of the round part of the roman tile . now considering the use of the tingle....... on lifting the tile taking the flaunching out i found that the roof battens for the first four or five courses were decayed back for a distance of between one and five inches. (i think that the replacement with plastic would require a sound batter to nail into the end grain). i have made six tingles from copper pipe . flattened in a vice then filed off the fold thus producing piece of copper about 12 inches long by about 1 inch wide. . stating at lowest course bend over front of tile and then up and over the sound part of the batten ( the roman tiles are about 15 inches wide) thus tingle goes under the second kick to the tiles. the tingles are pre bent before fixing . thus the bottom six rows are all linked by bedding and tingles. because i am considering a north facing left hand verge always wet i have also painted the flaunching the first roll and the first flat of the double roman tile with boiled linseed oil in an attempt to keep the moisture out. your view on the mortar mix is of interest. you advise a strong mix .. fair enough but i think the advice on pointing mortar is a weaker mix which would possibly accommodate movement caused by sun rain frost. related to this i understand that when building the u-boat pens during WW2 that the germans added oil (unknown type) to the concrete. a few years back i made an experiment with boiled linseed oil in concrete and it set like steel. In the past-few days i have seen a modern research paper (italian) which advocates a small amount of oil added 1% . i have added a couple of dessert spoons of boiled linseed to my mixes . lastly i have noticed that all of the housing on this estate have been replaced by plastic and many re roofed . the estate is about 40 years old and built without plastic verges originally. next door have had plastic verges and replaced adjoining 2rows of tiles (presumably to renew ends of battens). i have worked in building all my life but not as roofer . Again thanks for your interest . ps perhaps of interest to you would be Knapen tubes. dutch invention where sloping holes 12mm dia depth of2inch made in say flaunching or bedding .lined with porous clay pipe allows air to circulate in, absorb moisture, the flow out keeping flaunching dry.

Very true.... The amount of jobs I've been to where the dry verge have blown off.. Shite.

Absolutely agree. It appears few care about plastering plastic Lego bricks along their verges. Utterly ghastly in every way. Next they'll be fitting that nasty American-style uPVC siding and, God forbid, those cheap shed felt roofing "shingles" which are sadly ubiquitous across much of N. America.

To give our tiles the same sloping plane I meant to say

Brother!

Thanks!

@@HomebuildingMagazine please do another one but for a small roof for the front door if the House

When changing the facia you’ll need to remove the first course of tiles and probably push up the second course up. Bit of a headache but no nightmare.

As a Roofer I always fix a double batten just behind the fascia so the weight is supported, also this can be done to determine the the size a fascia needed

You're welcome, Sado :)

@@HomebuildingMagazine شكرا لك استاذي العزيز

You dont need to half bond those tile or stagger them but you can half bond the Marley modern type of tile the flat profile 1 hope you dont mind me answering your question

Chess Ferrier . I’m a roofer , or was , just retired after 30 odd years . The simple reason why you don’t usually stagger interlocking tiles is that you don’t need to because they interlock and have an enclosed rain channel (flange ) running along the left hand edge of the tile . On the right hand side of the tile you have a raised lip that fits over and locks onto the left hand flange of the previously laid tile thus making it waterproof. The only roof tiles you need to stagger are slates or plain tiles ( small almost flat concrete tiles , often used on the sides of houses as vertical cladding ) . The reason you have to stagger or cross bond these is because they are not interlocking , you just bump them up to the next tile so there is a small gap there where the rain will get in. So by staggering them you overlap the top part of the tile so that the rain can’t get in there . It doesn’t matter that the rain falls into the gap below because that has another tile beneath it , and so on all the way up from the eaves course . On these type of roofs the eaves tile will be a smaller different size to all the other tiles because it has to fit completely under the first main visible tile . You will notice that on this interlocking tile roof the tiles are all the same size as there is no need for an extra row of eaves tiles at the bottom . As someone else mentioned you can stagger some interlocking tiles such as the Marley Modern tile because they are not profiled , they are entirely flat ( usually coloured black ) . They were designed to look like the classic slate roofs but with the advantage of being interlocking . Some builders will stagger these simply to make them look more like a traditional slate roof , but as said there is no real need for it . Redland used to make an equivalent tile called a Stonewold which was a bit bigger and a lot heavier than the Marley Modern . Most roofers used to hate using them because they were so heavy , you used to break your back carrying them up the ladder on your shoulder or head . Nowadays I think they have tile hoists to lift them all up to roof level. A lot easier these days . Anyhow I hope this explains it fully for you . Incidentally it is possible to stagger some interlocking profiled tiles too , like the Marley BoldRoll as its profile will exactly match up with the tile below it , but there is absolutely no reason to because you won’t even be able to see the cross bonding , whereas you can on flat interlocking tiles like the Modern tile which gives that criss cross effect mimicking a slate roof.

That's why you lay tile from the edge that's your starting position working inside tile can be cut anyway needed so by the time you come to your valleys and it overlaps you bust out the saw and make perfect cuts

You can do it yourself.. Only thing you need permission for is changing the type of tile or slate as some areas won't let you change them

Awesome, thank you!

LEEDS8 stacks of 6 maybe but channel down never seen that like

@@lc-xk2kz Sorry mate, I meant the channel lower most, so when laying right to left the tiles naturally fall into place. 👍🏼

Why would you pay the roof

Only Americans put ply on the roof