On The Tiles

With the rafters in place I covered them with OSB3 to stabilise and give added protection and strength to the structure.  The roof membrane was stapled on and battens nailed into place to give a 3.5" tile overlap.  I decided to use second-hand tiles; not because they are cheaper, because they aren't, but because they would fit in to the picture better.  I bought them from a guy in Dereham who had demolished a barn and had sufficient.  They're heavy things, tiles.  It took 2 trips with car and trailer to collect them.  As it happened he also had ridge tiles which are more expensive.

I bought 4 velux windows which came with the flashing and seals.  For these I had to cut out the spaces I had left in the rafters and fit the frames.  I hope I have used sufficient extra felt and sealant to ensure they are all watertight - but it wall remains to be seen.  I assume we will get plenty of rain between now and when I insulate and finish the ceiling, so I'm sure I will find out.

I have decided to go with 'wet soffits' - where the ends of the final line of tiles at the gable end are mounted on mortar which requires a fibre board underlayer. It means being much more accurate with the cut tiles and the spacing up to the first velux window.  There will be a fair amount of trimming needed to fit the tiles around the windows, but I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end.

The gulley is the next thing requiring finishing.  I have laid the board on supporting timbers to give a 2" fall over the length and painted it all with Flexacryl fibre-reinforced paint.  Martins Plastics told me that this stuff is good enough to line a gulley without fibreglass, lead or plastic and will stay waterproof and flexible forever.  However I am going to lay a fibreglass gulley once there is sufficient heat in the air - I need a good 10 degrees to enable it to cure and it has been frosty recently so I need to wait a while.


Meantime I built a hopper to take the water discharged by the valley and drain it to a downpipe.  It is a downspout from the old guttering, cut to length and encased in an OSB frame which is wrapped in fibreglass inside and out to prevent leaking.  I hope it works.