How To Properly Lay Roofing Material

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Roofing material - cheap, but short-lived roofing material

In Soviet times, roofing material was perhaps the most affordable, and, therefore, the most popular roofing material. It has been widely used in both industrial and residential construction. Suffice it to recall the famous five-story buildings ("Khrushchevs"). And there is no need to talk about dacha construction …

But roofing material, alas, is a very short-lived material, since it is practically cardboard impregnated with petroleum bitumen with a protective coating of asbestos, talcum and other similar materials. Under the influence of solar and ultraviolet radiation, bitumen and protective coating break and crumble.

Cardboard, being saturated with moisture from rain and snow, gets soaked, and the roof usually requires major repairs, or even replacement. In a word, if you approach roofing material with the criterion: "Price - quality", then we can say this: low price - just as low quality of the material.

In the current situation - with an abundance of roofing materials (eyes run up: just choose!), Roofing material has lost its former relevance, and is now used mainly to cover the roofs of outbuildings: sheds, summer kitchens, baths, woodsheds, chicken coops. The usual service life of roofing material is 7-8 years. However, if it is laid in accordance with all the rules for laying roll roofing materials, then the roofing material can last up to 12 and even up to 15 years. And even longer.

The base for roofing felt can be concrete, cinder-concrete, but most often - wooden. The most optimal roof slope is from 10 to 30 degrees. The durability of a roofing material roof depends on many factors, but most of all - on a properly arranged lathing. It should be solid, firm enough and even.

Roofing material is laid in 2-4 layers. It depends on the nature of the building. Although it hardly makes sense to lay four layers on farm buildings. Quite enough well-laid two. Previously, there were mainly two ways of laying roofing material: the so-called "simple" and more complex, but much more reliable - on mastic.

When installing a simple roof, roofing material is laid along the slope, without mastic, directly on the wooden crate. If the rolled material falls loosely or in waves, then it must be rewound in the opposite direction. If roofing material is laid in two layers, then they are placed one perpendicular to the other.

The laid material is immediately temporarily fastened along the edges with nails. Then they put the slats, nailing them, thereby tightly pressing the laid material to the crate. Unfortunately, wooden slats rot rather quickly, and therefore they have to be changed often.

If the lathing is not too flat, instead of slats, you can use a metal strip: aluminum, copper, brass or soft steel. The main requirement for the tape: it must be flexible enough to fit exactly and tightly to the unevenness of the crate. However, it should be remembered that when using a metal tape, it can happen that after several years of operation, when most of the softening substances evaporate from the roofing material, the tape will cut into it and damage the place where the roofing material sheets overlap.

On descents (on overhangs), the roof is wrapped under the crate by at least 10 centimeters and fixed with roofing nails. I advise you to do this by nailing the ends of the roofing felt to the edges of the sheathing again with a metal tape.

Figure: 1.1 - rafters; 2 - rough lathing; 3 - finishing lathing; 4 - roofing material

Unlike earlier times, the second method of laying roofing material - on mastic is now used less and less, since it requires a complex and laborious technology. Therefore, the effect will be much greater if the roofing material is laid not on a single, but on a double crate … First, a rough flooring of boards (you can use slabs) is laid along the rafters with a thickness of 22-25 millimeters with a gap between them up to 5 centimeters. A continuous leveling crate is laid along it with a turn of 30-45 degrees, preferably from dry narrow boards with a thickness of 12-15 millimeters. And only after that the roofing material is laid (Fig. 1). In any case, roofing felt roofing should be fixed in dry, warm and calm weather.

If there is a need to build a roof, for example, in four rows, glassine or lining roofing material with fine mineral dressing is placed under the roofing material. The outer (top) layer is made of roofing material with coarse-grained or flaky dressing.

For gluing a multilayer roofing material coating, hot mastic is usually applied to the prepared base; before laying, the underside of the roofing material is completely cleaned of dusting, and the front side - to the width of the sticker. Before laying, the base is cleaned of dust, dirt, primed and dried.

Figure: 2. 1 - floor beam; 2 - rafters; 3 - break point

Do not lay roofing material on a kinked roof (fig. 2). All this is due to the fact that at the fracture, parts of the roof are at different angles to each other, and therefore they heat up and cool in different ways. And, as a result, tension forces are formed in the fracture, which either compress (in the cold), then stretch (in the heat) roofing material. But since it is tightly pressed against the crate, cracks inevitably form in the place of the break, and the roof begins to leak. And no, even the most careful laying and, it would seem, super-reliable fastening of roofing material will help to avoid this trouble.

It is advisable to inspect the roof made of roofing material twice a year: in early spring and late autumn. The detected defects must be eliminated immediately: clean the damaged areas from dirt and apply patches on them.