As we all know, quaintness in houses rarely comes without price. My sister lives in a 400-year-old trendified workman’s cottage in Britain’s West Country and enjoys the picturesque setting – her house is in the middle of an eight-cottage terrace, just down the lane from a Norman church.
The problem is that she has to wage an unending battle with the historic and lousy construction. The house is Cob built, meaning that its wall are large stones held together by a plaster of Devon mud and straw. The narrow dimensions, the squeaky, uneven floors, and even the rising damp – all of this she lives with and accepts as the price of quaintness.
But here’s the urgent thing she’s faced with now: Damp from the leaking slate roof is invading the third floor, which is a small bedroom converted from the attic with a couple of fanlight windows set into the roof. Previous owners had dealt with roof leaks by having the slate waterproofed with some kind of brushed-on rubberized compound. The latest village builder to offer an opinion says that the damp from the chimney breast indicates a crack in the chimney weatherproofing. He wants to repoint the stack, also replacing the flashing. However, other village experts have warned my sister that breaking the rubberized seal to do this will open a can of worms.
Ideas and suggestions on how to proceed would be much appreciated. Regards to all.
Replies
boot - (or should I say 'trunk'?) - A perspective obviously colored (coloured) by being on the wrong side of the Atlantic:
Denial is the greatest enemy of historic home repairs. It's time to face the fact that the basic nature of this slate roof and chimney is "leaky" and that an incorrect approach (rubber goo) was taken in the past. Time to deal with it properly - find out why it leaked originally and deal with that problem. Is it a number of spot (baby) repairs needed or slate replacement. Find a qualified roofer to determine whether or not the slate / nails / substrate are at the end of their lives and replace what needs replacing.
I suspect from your description that it is time to realistically open the can of worms and figure out what to do with them.
PS - Welsh slate is some of the best in the world, and not far away.
T. Jeffery Clarke
Edited 6/7/2002 12:19:44 PM ET by Jeff Clarke
You may need to rely on your own ingenuity.
Never worked slate myself, but was in Linlithgow, W. Lothian in April and had the opportunity to look at quite a few slate roof "repairs" there as the train station overlooks and is within a few feet of quite a few slate roofs. Can't say I saw any of the rubber coating, but sure did see lots of lead, galvanized, and aluminum pieces stuck in everywhere on some of those roofs, one even had what looked like a 10 year accumulation of Tesco plastic bags taped over specific sections.
Good luck.
Boot, in that part of the world, i.e., the UK, slate roofs will last for decades, even a century or two. Slate does have a working life of course-- frost, rain, sun, high winds, storms, snow, etc., all contribute to the slate's deterioration, but as I recall from growing up on a farm where we had several old houses with slate roofs that my father had to repair the first thing to go always seemed to be the nails which rusted away. Twenty or more years ago some bright spark came up with a fix for all that which was if I remember correctly some sort of rubberised mastic or fibreglass stuff intended to bond the whole lot together-- I forget the trade name now. That sounds like what she's got, and it was supposed to last 30 or 50 years or some other figure that only an especially credulous houseowner might believe-- but compared to doing a traditional repair job, it_ was_ very_cheap.
Anyway, the West country is hoochin' with roofers with years of experience working with slate roofs that will know how to fix it. It wouldn't surprise me if a 300 year old roof really needs to be stripped completely, the old lath's ripped off along with the roofing felt, and all built up from scratch again. It also wouldn't surprise me if many of those old slates are still in good nick too underneath the gunge, and re-usable if the gunge can be got off economically, but some of the nail holes might have got a bit too large. Still, my brother who still farms the old place in the UK goes out and picks up second-hand slates from demolition jobs for the maintenance he still has to do on those old roofs. Most roofers can, and will do the same, but none of it's cheap.
I don't know much about building, but I do know a bit about old slate roofs in the UK having shinned up and down more than I care to remember, and some were scarily steeply pitched too. This might be my only contribution to an actual house building thread in this forum, ha, ha, because I'm a furniture maker. Slainte, RJ.
Sounds like a new career opportunity. Importing Blue Tarps to the UK. Think they're ready for the Blue tarp & tire system?
Joe H
Nah, we've already heard of black plastic sheeting and ropes, Joe. <g> Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture