How Do English Thatched Roofs Work

Size of the roof.

How do english thatched roofs work.

This process can take a good few weeks and is priced on the size of your property. Southern england cottages in hampshire dorset and devon use a heavy layer of wheat straw to create the roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed trapping air thatching also functions as insulation. Build with dry vegetation materials including water reed heather straw rushes and also palm branches.

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. 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. Then the real work begins. 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.

Thatched roofs have become part of the very fabric of the english countryside depicted in paintings photographs and other media. A thatcher will take into consideration the following. Sometimes holloway strips the thatch right off and lays new timbers. All houses with thatch roofs need to have lightning conductors installed to protect them from being struck by lightning and consequently burning down.

For this the straw needs to be harvested by hand. Disadvantages of a thatched roof. These conductors need to be in accordance with the sabs code of practice. Getting a thatched roof initially installed is a labour intensive process as is a full re thatch.

Thatching needs whole straws so that they can be aligned in bundles to place on the roof. The type of thatching used in english cottages varies depending on the region. The larger the property the higher the price is likely to be. Tie the four corner boards together by nailing in cross members extending from each corner parallel to the ridge pole and 24 inches apart.

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. Build the roof structure for the thatching by nailing a 2 by 4 inch piece of lumber from each of the four corners of the building up to a center ridge pole that runs parallel to the ground. 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. He picks up a spar a branch of split hazel wood that has been tapered to a point at each end and.