How To Cover The Roof With Slate

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

Some secrets of using the popular slate roofing material

Probably, there is no person in our time who would not know that asbestos is a mineral harmful to health. And nevertheless … With the current abundance of roofing materials (just choose!), Slate, which is based on just harmful asbestos, remains one of the most demanded.

Under Soviet rule, the popularity of slate was quite understandable: the general shortage of other roofing materials (except, perhaps, roofing material) did not leave the builders a choice - only these two. In order to be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the rural, garden and country houses of those times. Their roofs are almost everywhere - slate. Why is this harmful and obsolete material still in demand today? This is due to two reasons: the cheapness of the material and the ease of its installation. And since the overwhelming majority of Russians do not pay attention to the environment, this naturally applies to asbestos slate.

The slope of the roof under the slate roof ranges from 25 to 45 degrees: the steeper the slope, the lower the waterproofness of the roof. The lathing for the roof is made of bars with a cross section of at least 50x50 millimeters and boards of the same thickness, with a distance between the rafters up to 1 meter. Since every developer, of course, is interested in ensuring that the roof is operated without problems for as long as possible, then when installing a roof, it is also important what material is placed on the crate, on which the slate is laid on top.

Such a lining material is necessary in order to prevent snow and rain from entering the side slots in case of strong winds and blizzards. In addition, as a result of temperature fluctuations on the slate, condensation inevitably forms, which drips onto the ceiling. If you follow the traditional outdated technology, then glassine or roofing felt are laid on the crate under the slate. And since glassine "breathes" very badly, and roofing material does not "breathe" at all, they also become a source of condensation. In addition, practice shows that, being in a confined space under the slate, cardboard-bitumen materials begin to deteriorate intensively after 12-15 years, turning into crumbs over time.

The use of modern non-woven lining materials, such as Tyvek, TechnoNikol, Yutakon, Stafol Kon, anti-condensation films and many others will significantly extend the service life of a slate roof. Modern lining waterproofing materials combine three properties necessary to maximize the life of the roof: air tightness - like polyethylene, "breathe" - like spunbond, do not let water through - like roofing felt.

It is clear that the cost of modern lining materials is much higher than the cost of the notorious roofing material and glassine. But here each developer must decide for himself: is it worth the candle? Slate roofing is laid in two ways: with displacement of sheets by one wave in each subsequent row, or more economical, but more laborious - displacement of each row relative to the other by half a wave and with cutting off the adjacent corners of the slate sheets in order to ensure their snug fit to each other. friend.

Cutting corners is a very time consuming and tedious job. Twenty years ago, it was produced with an ordinary hacksaw for wood. This primitive method produced not too even edges and not exactly the same corners of the joints. Now it is possible to use various disk cutting tools, such as the well-known "grinder". The order of stacking sheets without cut corners is shown in Figure 1. With cut corners - in Figure 2. The numbers indicate the sheet numbers. Each sheet is laid on the crate with an overlap of 120-150 millimeters on the previous row - depending on the slope of the roof. With an increase in the slope (steepness), the size of the overlap can be reduced, but leave it at least 70 millimeters.

The laid sheets are attached to the crate with 70-90 mm galvanized nails or screws. But both must be used with rubber seals or special washers, which reliably compensate for the deformation of the wood due to drying out, and the temperature deformation of the slate sheets themselves. Moreover, slate sheets are nailed exclusively on the crests of the waves and in no case in the depressions, otherwise the roof leakage is ensured. For this, holes are pre-drilled on the crests of the waves that are 2-3 millimeters larger than the diameter of the nails or screws. Punching holes by anything is not allowed. The very fastening of the slate sheets to each other and to the crate is shown in Figure 3. The ridge and roof ribs are covered with ridge elements. For the installation of gutters, galvanized steel gutters are used.