Day 7 - 1st tile removed

Started removing the tiles and throwing them in to container. We will be keeping quite a few for a large outbuilding that needs to be re-roofed. Then the scaffolding boss turned up and said he needed some tiles for a building he had just bought and so with the container no more than 20% full, we started to remove and stack the tiles on pallets.

On this side of the roof, there is no room to build a "slide" to get the tiles to the ground so all have to be slid down to the scaffolding and then by hand passed down to someone on the ground to stack. Actually not as bad as it sounds except for the bloke on the ground (me) who gets all the dirt in his face as he looks up to grab the tiles.

On the left of the roof, one can now see the "problem" of the roof construction. The roof tiles are held in place by the horizontal wooden battens (correct) which are directly fixed to the tar sheeting (incorrect). The battens should be fixed to vertical rafters so that should a tile break, rain water will run vertically down on the sheeting. With our system, the water can only go as far as the next batten and then either stays there or moves horizontally until it finds a way through down to the next batten and so it goes on. Means that with time the batten rots and it also means it is extremely difficult to spot where broken tiles are.

Under the battens is the tar sheeting nailed to boarding under which is the insulation wool and then the interior ceiling. During the initial investigation, we had discovered the tar sheeting had in large areas not been used but plastic sheeting which over the last 50 years had become totally brittle and was not in any way adequate.

So here we go.........