Re-slating a Traditional Roof
A large job stripping the very weathered slates from a pitched roof townhouse and replacing them with Spanish slates along with roofing membrane, lead flashings, galvanised valleys, ridges and water gates. The roof had small leaks over a few years so some of the sarking boards underneath needed replaced. Some of the slates still had the old horsehair underfelt which dated back possibly to the early 1900s.
Click to enlarge the pictures
Working with my friend Joe, we stripped back through all the layers of slate, dust, horsehair, tar, lead and steel to the bare sarking boards, replaced any that were water damaged and cleaned down the whole roof before installing new breathable waterproof membrane followed by the zinc galvanised valleys and any lead flashings that needed replaced or added.
The Spanish slates were mostly 16″x9″ slates, matching some of the surrounding slate courses and providing a uniform finish. On one side, the neighbour’s slates were in a poor state and were in uneven rows (the traditional diminishing courses of Scottish slating) so we had to install a hidden water gate under the dividing line – basically a zinc water channel under the tiles that creates a clean break and eliminates the need to tie in your slates to existing damaged ones.
We renovated a dorma window, replacing any rotten wood and repainting it as well as unblocking gutter downpipes which had been blocked for decades – jobs which without the scaffolding would have been much harder for the customer.