Ordinary corrugated asbestos cement slate sheets are allowed to cover the roofs of any buildings. A slate roof is distinguished by its durability, practicality, relatively low cost and ease of installation, for this reason this material, in the presence of more modern alternatives, is still too early to write off.
Features of laying slate
At installing slate on your roof it is necessary to remember the smoothness of the outer side of the slate sheets.
Based on this, they are stacked as follows:
- in the transverse direction, the sheets are laid from right to left, ensuring that one of the sheets overlaps in one wave;
- as for the longitudinal direction, here they are laid from the bottom up, ensuring that the row laid below is overlapped by a 140 mm sheet laid one level above.
Before you cover the roof with slate with your own hands, you need to know that there are two ways to lay slate sheets in relation to each other:
- the first method involves the displacement of the longitudinal edges of the slate sheets by one wave relative to the sheets laid below;
- the second way is to combine the longitudinal edges in all sheets stacked above.
In the first case, it is supposed to cut a certain number of sheets covering the surface from the eaves to the roof ridge along the edge of the roof, by 1-3 waves.
The second case involves cutting the corners of the sheets, while ensuring the straightness of the line of joints.
Preparing the batten for laying the slate roof
Before you cover the roof with slate, you need to prepare a competent and reliable foundation.
The basis for the installation of asbestos-cement slate sheets is a crate made of wooden bars with a section of 60 by 60 mm.
The layout of the bars is made in such a way as to ensure their alternation in height - the odd ones were 60 mm high, the even ones were 63 mm high.
Since the bars are of the same size, the even ones must be built up with planks of wood 3 mm thick. This will ensure the density of the longitudinal overlap of the sheets.
The battens of the battens are laid out and fastened in 530 mm increments from the eaves to the ridge. Their fastening is carried out with screws, nails, as well as anti-wind brackets.
The dimensions of the crate should provide the possibility of stacking a whole number of sheets in both the longitudinal and transverse directions. If it is impossible to comply with this rule, the penultimate sheets located in transverse rows are cut off at the gable overhang, and in the longitudinal direction the sheets are cut off at the ridge.
Installation of a slate roof
Before being installed in place, asbestos-cement sheets are checked for damage and manufacturing defects, for compliance with the declared width and length, after which the corners or longitudinal strips of the sheets are trimmed.
Roofing with slate is done as follows:
- Sheets one by one rise to the roof and are strengthened, starting from the lower right edge of the roof slope. Rows of sheets are laid one after the other with the required overlaps.
- Holes for screws or nails are drilled with an electric or hand drill at the place of attachment. The diameter of the drill is selected 2 mm larger than the diameter of the fastener.
- A nail with a metal or rubber washer, which is coated on both sides with a composition on natural drying oil, is inserted into the prepared hole and hammered into the bar with hammer blows. For fastening, nails with a combined head measuring 4 by 100 mm, a rubber or metal washer with a diameter of 18 mm are used.
- The nail is hammered until the excess of the coating composition comes out from under the washer. A nail head is also coated with a similar composition, which is painted under the general color scheme of slate sheets after the composition has dried.
Slate roof ridge device
The slate roof provides for the careful execution of work on the construction of the roof ridge.A wooden beam is mounted on the ridge, and on both sides of it 2 crate beams are attached along the entire length. .
After covering both slopes with slate, brackets are mounted on a wooden beam mounted on a ridge, on which running portable bridges are then attached, as well as a ridge beam.
Before covering the roof with ridge slate, the upper edge of this bar is rounded according to the radius of the ridge slate used.
Along the entire length, the bar is covered with rolled material, after which you can start laying the ridge slate.
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First, the KPO1 ridge is laid, and it is located towards the pediment with a wide socket. Then it is covered from the side of the adjacent slope with a KPO2 ridge.
Here is the marking of the holes for the fasteners. Two holes are drilled through both skates along the longitudinal axis of the wave, as well as two holes on the flat lapels of each of the ordinary skates.
The holes located on the lapels must also pass through the crests of the waves of the slate sheets of the main roofing.
The roof slope adjacent to the rib is covered with ribs (oblique parts of the sheets), the dimensions of which are determined on the spot. They fit tightly to the rib beam and are attached to the crate in the same way as ordinary sheets - with screws or nails.
A 35 cm wide strip of rolled material is fixed on the edge of the crate, after which KPO skates are laid in pairs from bottom to top. They are strengthened in the same way as on a skate.
Now you know how to cover the roof with slate. It remains to find out what is the prevention of the durability of such a coating, as well as to voice the methods for troubleshooting a slate roof.
Slate painting
It is not enough just to cover the roof with slate. After the installation of the slate roof is completed, it is necessary to think about painting the coating.
As you know, asbestos-cement slate is produced mainly in gray, the appearance of which is rather boring and monotonous.
To improve the decorative qualities of the roof, as well as significantly extend the life of the slate coating, slate sheets are painted with acrylic paint, which is very resistant to weathering.
After applying acrylic paint, a protective layer is formed on the slate, which resists the destruction and absorption of water by the material, and also increases its frost resistance. In addition, the paint will protect the coating from the growth of mosses and lichens on it.
Repair of an old slate roof
With long-term operation of a slate roof, chips and cracks may appear on the sheets, which, if ignored, can lead to roof leaks during precipitation.
Repair of a slate roof in such cases can be carried out by the method of filling cracks:
- First of all, a putty solution is made using drying oil and chalk.
- Problem areas are smeared with putty, after which bituminous mastic is applied to the cracks, and after it dries, it is painted over with oil paint.
- The previous method is suitable for small cracks, and as for large cracks, it is recommended to stick fabric patches on them. Before repairing a slate roof in this way, it is necessary to pre-clean and prime the place of application with drying oil.
- For gluing the patch, oil thickened paint is used.The size of the patch should slightly exceed the dimensions of the damaged area (by about 10 cm), while the staining area should exceed the size of the patch by only 2-3 centimeters.
Advice! To putty holes in the slate, a cement mortar is used, made in a ratio of 1: 1 with sand. The solution is smoothed, primed, then dried and painted.
If the slate roof is still leaking, then you should seriously think about replacing the damaged slate sheet with a new element.
To remove the damaged sheet, the surrounding slate sheets are loosened by partial removal of the nails.
As for the structural element itself, all fixing nails are completely removed from it with the help of a nail puller, after which the sheet is removed.
When installing a new sheet, one of the installers must lift the weakened sheets from the side and top of the installation site, and the second puts the new sheet on the edge of the sheet located on the side, after which it shifts in the direction of the ridge under the sheet located on top of it.
After the sheet accepts the position in which the replaced one was, it is attached, after which the weakened nails return to their original position, and slate roof repair can be considered complete.
The slate roof should now stop leaking.
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