We have just had the stairs to our roof repaired and new tiles laid it all looks wonderful, now waiting for the railing put back. What does look ugly is the actual roof. We keep debating what to do.
Tiles??
Decking??
Or what???
Our house is an old farm house
Decking requires more work we think....cleaning etc. Plus in time the weather will degrade it....the intense heat and rain does tend to have a great impact.
Would invest in good quality tiles in keeping with your lovely old farmhouse.
Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass,it's about learning to dance in the rain
People we know did it a bit different. They put down 5cm of gravel first, then laid those strange polystyrene boards over the top of that, then tiled on top of that as well. They made very sure that the roof was totally waterproof first mind you, it would have been a disaster if a leak had appeared! Maybe it was overkill and maybe not but it kept the heat in during the winter and dropped the room temps by a good 6 degrees during the summer as well. When they did their second roof over their bedroom they never bothered with the gravel first and just went straight to the boards and tiles, the result in temp gain for winter and loss for summer was just the same!!! Just a thought. By the way, they are Turkish Cypriots who have lived here all their lives so they do know about the climate.
Not being a TC, I just painted mine with a reflective paint - wasted two days doing that with no measurable gain in summer or winter but it did make it nice and shiny - lol.
No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.
think that is the stuff we are taking off now the only way is to put proper applied insulation that we have been using instead of torch on felt its more durable and then tile on top of that polystyrene boards move under foot and would there for give the tiles no solid footing to sit on
To place gravel under it must make it worst just like the Cyps has done on many roofs that we have replaced cant understand how they thought it out but were still using when T/b was built
No, not torch on felt, it was paint. Put it on with a roller, two coats, 10 years ago and it's still there and still shines - seems to have no other purpose in life but to shine! The lack of "footing" for the tiles on top of the polystyrene was my thought as well but strangely and yet again 10 years later, it's still there and solid as a rock. Even the stuff on top of the gravel is solid but I seem to remember them dusting the gravel with cement as well so maybe that all helped. I think the whole idea hinges on the more you can stuff on top of the roof, the better it will be - lol. We solved the whole problem by moving house to one that has a pitched/tiled roof with a good roof void under it - the only problem with that is it also has suspended ceilings and I would kill for the old glass wool insulation to fill up all the gaps with, like chickens teeth it seems like it can not be had North or South.
No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.
I don't really need insulation. Our house is old and has the old fashioned timber roof with natural insulation. We did have a couple of leaks when there are extreme downpours. Hence the white lines you can see in the picture. I painted anything with the recommended stuff, that looked like a crack, but I probable overdid it. The reason I said decking, because it is easily removable, but my husband does not like it
