How Do English Thatched Roofs Work

Tie the four corner boards together by nailing in cross members extending from each corner parallel to the ridge pole and 24 inches apart.

How do english thatched roofs work. Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw water reed sedge cladium mariscus rushes heather or palm branches layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Thatching needs whole straws so that they can be aligned in bundles to place on the roof. You need to layering the vegetation to make sure if the shed would help the water run away. Southern england cottages in hampshire dorset and devon use a heavy layer of wheat straw to create the roof.

These conductors need to be in accordance with the sabs code of practice. Then the real work begins. The larger the property the higher the price is likely to be. Disadvantages of a thatched roof.

The basic principle is to layer the thatch material in such a way that rainwater is shed away from the inner roof and off the side of the building providing a waterproof barrier much the same as that granted by typical slate tile based roofs. Sometimes holloway strips the thatch right off and lays new timbers. Each thatch layer is built up to a thickness of around 12 inches and gravity carries rain sleet and snow down and off the roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed trapping air thatching also functions as insulation.

Getting a thatched roof initially installed is a labour intensive process as is a full re thatch. A thatcher will take into consideration the following. The thatchers art consists of carefully laying 5 to 6 foot bundles of reeds atop one another so that an impenetrable shell of waterproofing covers a roof. For this the straw needs to be harvested by hand.

When thatch ceased to be the cheapest form of roofing because tile especially welsh slate in the 1820 s became available the english thatched cottage began its decline. Size of the roof. Thatching is the craft of building a roof with a variety of dry vegetation ranging from wheat and water reed through to long straw and heather. This process can take a good few weeks and is priced on the size of your property.

Thatching included as one of the crafting activities for the roofing process. He picks up a spar a branch of split hazel wood that has been tapered to a point at each end and. Thatched roofs have become part of the very fabric of the english countryside depicted in paintings photographs and other media. All houses with thatch roofs need to have lightning conductors installed to protect them from being struck by lightning and consequently burning down.