Green Roof

, originally uploaded by DavidBole.

I thought I would blog this, because I looked for something similar and couldn't find anyone else's experience blogged. This is the roof of my lean-to woodshed. I have made the roof entirely out of reclaimed wood and so has cost me nothing but the nails.

I have always loved wooden shingles - in fact many Forestry Commission offices have shingle roofs so I have often worked under one. But shingles are expensive, so I thought I'd try making my own. These are made from fence panels (fairly new but broken). Taking them apart was not hard, it was harder not to break the boards in the process. Once apart I cut the boards into 12 inch lengths and cleaned them up a bit. It doesn't matter too much if a board splits long ways as you need narrower pieces to achieve the stagger.

The frame is fourBtwo that the builder left. The batons are the batons off the fence panels. To achieve water proofness you need to have three layers of shingle at the free end. I spaced the batons at five inch centres which achieved this nicely. I pre-drilled holes in the shingles for the nails otherwise they are likely to split, but you can drill about 10 in one go. I also put two nails (half inch galvanised clout) in each shingle, so that if they split in future they will still stay roughly in place. I didn't line it but if you wanted a really water-tight finish you could.

Bang bang bang - it took a bit longer than I expected, but really enjoyable to be creating a roof which cost nothing and looks way better than felt.

I am surprised at how well it keep the rain off. Being a woodshed it wasn't crucial that it was 100% water tight, but we have had some pretty hard rain and though the underside of the shingles get damp it hasn't dripped.

Comments

[Pootle]

Fantastic, it looks great!