The front roof appears to have last been re-covered in 1910 using tiles reclaimed from an earlier roof.   The tiles were mounted on steel nails which had corroded causing the tiles to slip.  The roof leaked but local repairs weren’t sensible because of the risk of disturbing surrounding tiles.

The tiles and batons were removed in a day, and the roof covered with a tarpaulin to keep the rain out.  The tarpaulin made a lot of noise in the wind but was quickly replaced with felt and new batons.

The roof structure was good.  Part of the facia board was replaced but the main timbers were fine. The roof was very well ventilated and the leaks must have dried quickly.

From the street the house looks as sorry as it is likely to get.  Later with the roof and chimneys fixed the house has started to look finished above the plastic sheeting.

The original tiles have been retained where possible, but around 10% were replaced with reclaimed tiles mixed in with the existing.   There were already three different types of tile mixed together on the roof from where people had done much the same thing in the past.

People will be wondering what we did as the roof looks like it did before.  Hopefully it won’t leak and shed tiles any more.

We have breathable felt below the tiles, and the tiles are secured with aluminium pegs with the slates at the rear secured with copper nails.

Another lovely sunny day.  The roof has been felted and battened and tiles stacked ready to go back on.  But the roofers are not here.

We noticed some problems with the chimneys which will be much easier to sort out while we can still climb on the roof.

The top of the north chimney had been rebuilt in cement at some point and I guess the bricks became too wet and spalled when the flaunching failed. I’m replacing them with modern bricks and cement.

I didn’t have any bricks that matched so the barbecue is now a course of bricks lower. The Jackdaw who lives in the chimney was very tolerant and her chicks are still getting on well.  I had to be very careful to prevent debris from falling into the nest.

I am not entirely sure what was holding up the south chimney, but amazingly none of the bricks were loose.  One had spalled hence the hole.  I probably ought to have completely rebuilt this chimney in hindsight as it also leans by around an inch.  Instead I replaced most of the mortar with the bricks in place.

The top of the south chimney had been repaired in cement but the bricks were loose rather than spalled and I can put them back in. We had a hold up due to a reclamation yard sending a chimney pot far different from their photos, and this caused a great deal of annoyance and last minute searching for chimney pots.

I had a bright idea and cut the top off the poorly matching chimney pot.  It’s a good match now.  Just some fiddling to get the cowl to fit properly and the chimneys will be finished.

The roofers had lead specialists came in for a morning to weld the fiddly bits of leading above the chimneys with appropriate falls, then the roofers neatly cut and fitted the leading and pointed it in lime.  Though if you are doing the same thing look up soakers on the internet – they might have been a better way to do this leading.

We’ve not had enough historical chimney interest in this post.   In photos taken from the church you can see the chimney in the previous couple of photos had been removed and rebuilt on the other side of the attic window in 1910.   I turns out the bricks from the original building were re-used.  I found a very sooty brick behind a facing brick that had spalled in the gable.  The size and colour of the brick match the opposite chimney.

I asked the roofers if there was anything I needed to be doing over the May bank holiday weekend and they asked me to rebuild the parapet wall.  Roofers only like to tuck their lead into walls with a clear connection to the ground, so my magic levitating bricks were no good.

The pointing had eroded so badly that the bricks had become loose.  The top few courses could be lifted off with no resistance.   So could the next few courses.  By the time I got down to bricks that stuck a bit to the course below  I was down about 6 or 7 courses.

The timber that became exposed had started to rot where it had been embedded in mortar between the loose leaky bricks, but it was still sound enough to work as a roof.  I have treated the timber and I’m rebuilding the wall as a cavity wall around the timber with ventilation from the roof space.

I’ll update this post later.  I’m a very slow bricklayer and haven’t finished yet.

Here we go.  The top courses had been rebuilt previously in cement and the bricks couldn’t be saved.   Rather than use new bricks I’ve gone for a slight design change.  The  parapet wall will be slightly lower and capped with tiles making it secondary to the main ridge line.  Hopefully that will also help keep water off the brickwork.

Much later the roofers put a little hat on the top of the wall.   We didn’t really think it through and there is a lot of lead on there from various evolutions of the design.  The timbers underneath should at least be well protected.