Our roof problem escalates

As mentioned here, we are in the process of having the front (gable-end) roof fixed. Today it turns out that fifty years ago the original builders used the wrong kind of sand to mix the cladding: it has turned into flimsy tat, incapable of holding even its own weight. It will all have to be replaced - a day or two's work has turned into over a week.

We were going to repaint the house at some point so our cognitive frame for this new paradigm is that it's early additional investment rather than a project spiralling into the heart of darkness.

We thought it was straightforward ...

Until the cladding started to fall off.

This Confucian refugee from Alice in Wonderland spooked us ...

And then this cat appeared, overlooking our back garden ...

Dry verge roofing vs. traditional mortar

We're awaiting the replacement of a fallen roof tile, a problem that has exposed the wear and tear of the entire mortar verge at the edge of the gabled tiling. The roofer has suggested plastic dry verge roofing. Here is what the plastic proponents have to say about it.

"If you have a gable roof and live in an older house, the chances are that you have ‘wet verge’ roofing. The ‘verge’ refers to the outer ends of your roof above the gable end (the wall above which two verges meet). Traditionally, these areas at the edge of your roof are fixed with mortar in order to prevent water ingress and pests such as birds nesting in your roof. Roofs rendered with mortar for these purposes are what we refer to as ‘wet verges’.

There’s no doubt that mortar does the job it’s built for; it stops pests getting into your roof and will stop water leaking through too. The real problem with mortar lies in its durability. Mortar naturally deteriorates over time due to weathering caused by facing the elements and the natural movement within a building structure, which can dislodge the mortar. This leads to cracks in the mortar which can lead to the problems it’s meant to prevent. It can also leave your roofline looking quite unsightly.

Mortar requires regular maintenance to keep functioning, such as repointing. Unfortunately, this isn’t the sort of task you’re able to carry out in an hour on a Sunday afternoon – it often requires scaffolding to be erected which can be costly. There is no way to stop the deterioration of mortar, which means the only guarantee you get from it is maintenance costs further down the line.

Thankfully, mortar isn't the only option for preventing water ingress and pests in your roofing. ‘Dry fixing’ is an increasingly popular roofing option which allows for the weather and pest-proofing of your roof without the need for mortar.

Dry verge roofing makes use of interlocking caps that fit over the edge of your roof tiles, and offers an effective and, more importantly, durable alternative to wet verges.

Dry verge caps are usually made of plastic, which in itself offers some distinct advantages. The most obvious advantage is plastic’s durability; plastic verge caps should last you at least 10 years and require a fraction (if any) of the maintenance associated with mortar. Essentially, you won’t need to worry about your roof leaking in or any pesky birds nesting in your roof!

Plastic’s durability also means that your roof will look better for longer. It’s a bit of a myth in the building trade that traditional materials such as mortar look better on older houses and that plastic can be a bit ‘impersonal’ and ‘cold’. This isn’t the case; plastic offers a clean finish that is guaranteed to last. With more and more homes adopting dry verge systems, your roofline won’t stick out like a sore thumb either.

It goes without saying that dry verge roofing offers all the roofline protection required just as, if not more, effectively than wet verges. Opting for dry verge caps also offers some distinct advantages regarding ventilation. They are fitted so that some air is allowed to enter, thus providing the natural ventilation a roofline requires to not get damaged by the elements.

If your mortar is starting to look a bit shabby, don’t waste your money on expensive repointing that will only last for a few years – look at investing in dry verges instead."

How durable is uPVC?

"Un-plasticized Polyvinyl Chloride is also the most durable of the materials available. Aluminium can pick up rust whereas uPVC is strong, tough and resilient. It is highly unlikely uPVC will need to be changed and some companies even offer up to 10 year guarantees on uPVC double glazing."

"On The Steel Breeze" - Alastair Reynolds

'On The Steel Breeze' is the second volume of Alastair Reynolds' planned trilogy Poseidon's Children (the first volume was the somewhat meandering and confusing 'Blue Remembered Earth' which I discussed here).

Here's part of the review from scifiempire.

‘On The Steel Breeze’ deals with three of the great-grandchildren of Eunice Akinya, the never seen but always present grand-mother of the two main protagonists Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya from Blue Remembered Earth. These three great-grandchildren are in fact clones of one called Chiku Akinya.

The clones are color coordinated, so you have Chiku Green, Chiku Yellow and Chiku Red. The latter got killed trying to save Eunice. Death must be interpreted relativistic as she still manages to influence the story. And so the two remaining clones set out to get the answers about life and everything that always seems to be a background theme of Alastair Reynolds.

Whereas ‘Blue Remembered Earth’ sometime has problems with characters performing actions that were illogical, or seemingly without purpose, this novel does it better. Each character is enriched with their own belief system and most importantly a personal politics that guide their every action and thought.

Reynolds has a talent for unobtrusively creating a densely imagined - one might even say anticipated - world. The central idea of OTSB is that the solar-system-wide computer system which runs civilization has been taken over by an AI which has itself been sequestered by signals from an alien machine intelligence. An epic battle for survival between organic and machine intelligences is about to play out, both at home and at the planet 18 light years out (called Crucible) where the alien machine systems hang out.

The novel is quite a page-turner, ending in multiple cliff-hangers. Many of the characters are less than endearing and the clone-heroines, the Chikus, are an irritating mix of smug moral superiority and inflexible pacifism. In real life this tends not to work too well, but the plot has been tweaked so that the expected bad things don't get to happen. Hmm.

Roll on volume 3.
___

Ten days ago a great storm lashed southern England and duly detached a single tile about a third the way up our steep roof, right at the front cement-edge. By some miracle the falling tile shattered on the driveway, missing the glass roof of the car port and the parked car. You'd think a quick climb up a long ladder and a bit of adhesive on a replacement tile would fix it, but what do I know?

Professional roofers have outlined a cascading sequence of problems.

• The edge-tiles are light and experience wind-load, so the job should not be bodged. 
• Insertion of a new tile will crack the one higher up unless that is also lifted: this domino effect extends for several metres.
• Adjusting this set of tiles will require the removal and replacement of the edge-cement bedding, the cement verge. Actually due to age-deterioration it all needs replacement. (See here for more).
• Scaffolding of some height is required for access. 
• Our tree may need to be pruned back to get the scaffolding in.

Does any of this sound cheap?

The insurance assessor comes round tomorrow morning.