I was talking about the main causes of roof leaks a couple of days ago and one of them was bad mortar.
Britain is renowned for its wet summers and even wetter winters. Persistent rain alongside the strongest winds in Europe leads to one of man’s most loathed combinations – driving rain. In addition to being the worst enemy of BBQ enthusiasts, golfers and anyone waiting on an open platform for a train, driving rain is also the worst enemy of roofs.
You can rely on the British weather to exploit any weak points in your roof. And when it comes to rain, as it so often does, the weakness in your roof will most likely be the mortar. The scale of this problem is recognised by The National House Building Council (NHBC) – the body that provides warranties for new houses. They identified mortar as the common cause of roof damage.
Dry Fix Roofing Systems
A mortar that is mixed poorly will crack sooner or later. When that happens, driving rain will seep into the cracks. And if you’re unlucky enough for it to be cold when this happens, that rain will freeze and break the mortar, leaving you with a lack of tiles on your roof as they start falling off. And then your roof leaks, and the elements have won, leaving you in need of roof repairs.
Apart from moving abroad, is there a solution to the rain/mortar conundrum? Yes it is – the dry fix roofing systems. It’s a way of fixing tiles to a roof that doesn’t involve mortar. It’s what roofing material manufacturers developed to combat awful weather and badly mixed mortar. These products are usually tested in a wind tunnel, built specifically to recreate the weather conditions that face Britain on a daily basis.
If you’re getting a new roof, or having roof repairs, ask for dry fix. You can’t control the weather, but at least you’ll have a warm, dry house to come home to.
How to convert your old roof. Installing a dry ridge on an existing old roof
Below is an interesting video I found on Youtube, there is also the transcript:
Hello again and welcome to part 2 of how to convert from an old mortar ridge over to a Dry ridge system, and let’s get straight back into it by fitting the ridge button to our new brackets from part one. The timber you provide to the ridge brackets are normally a good quality graded button graded button like this is usually a lot stronger, straighter and not free in comparison sand, non-graded, which may also be available. This obviously makes it a better choice for fixing ridge tiles too. Now just take the length of the roof and place it in the brackets loosely here. I’ve position the left-hand side about 100 mil or 4 inches short of the very end. This is because I’ll be reusing.
The existing ridge tiles and using a traditional mortar finish on the end of the verge keeping the timber back like this, stops the button absorbing damp from the mortar in later life swelling and either rotting or pushing the mortar out fire expansion. It is, however, still far enough forward to fix into at a later stage.
The last length can now be cut to size and taken back up the roof.
This is also cut short of the verge end as before. If you have to make a joint of course, two brackets can be fitted onto a trust just about, although fitting two onto a ridge board is much easier if you’re struggling for brackets or room. One alternative that I sometimes use is to share a bracket like this bait. Pole screws make a very good fixing that cuts and taps both timber and batten without danger of splitting or, if you’re, using two roofing buttons in the brackets for extra height. You can simply stagger the button one on top of the other and screw into the button beneath now. It’s just a matter of fixing the battens of the brackets nails are usually supplied with the kits, but I prefer to use a good quality screw-like, a turbo gold.
I find the combination of the nice thin shank and the cutting head helps to stop any splitting into the button and allows for easy removal in case of adjustments. For any reason later on, you should now have done all the hard work and have an extremely firm fixing for the ridges later. So it’s now time to make sure that the top of the tiles are dry and dust-free ready for fitting the ventilator rich roll. Next, roll out the ventilated roll centrally along the ridge button fixing with galvanized clown nails as you go on this job, the end, each tile will be traditionally bedded on mortar to fit in with the surrounding properties. So I’m going to leave the ventilated roll flush with the verge for the moment. If, though, you’re using any sort of stop end ridge like this one, the ventilated roll can be left long over the end of the roof had simply folded down and then capped by the cloak end of the ridge tile later now, it’s just a matter of rolling Out the vent roll and try not to pull it too tight or leave it too soggy and, of course, fixing as you go.
If you have to make a joint like I’ve, had to here, try to allow a minimum of 100 millimeters of overlap, especially if you’re in an exposed area or you’re, not using hip trays later on once you’re happy with the result, we can adhere the vent roll To the profiles of the roof tile, you can now peel back two protective tape from the butyl adhesive and start forming the vent roll to the tiles themselves on windy days. Only peel back a small section at a time. Otherwise, the adhesive side, which is very adhesive, can blow all over the place, sticking to everything you don’t want it to or getting contaminated and losing its stickiness here, I’m using nothing but a non rubber work glove to rub the tape side of the Flushing’s into the Profiles, there is a professional tool that you can use or you can use a silicone seam roller if you have one but to be quite honest, I’ve found that they’re not much better than by hand and they are prone to rolling down the roof. If you should drop them while working, you should now have a ventilated ridge wall.
That’s very well stuck down, and if we take a look at this job, you will see that I’ve actually installed my right buttons, probably just about as high as I possibly could – and I did this to achieve the maximum possible air ventilation to the roof underneath, which Was suffering from condensation and mould? It’s at this point. If we were using hip support trays like these, I would starts installing them.
These just cover the vented roll overlapping each other from one end of the roof to the other, but as we’re more interested in maximum ventilation, I simply don’t need to fit them on this occasion. Next, I’ve cut away some of the fouling ridge roll on both sides of the roof, where my mortar, for the end of the ridge tile, will see because the two original tiles had hairline cracks in them.
I’ve had to discard them, so these two new ridge tiles will sit at either end of the roof. The scratch line here on the ridge is to provide me with a fixing position into the ridge button below and by offering it into place like this. I can be sure of drilling the ridge accurately with the rich tile back on the floor. It’s just a matter of turning it over marking it and drilling the hole carefully through from the underside with a small masonry bit once we through. We can turn it back over and you should have a nice neat, countless on hole for a screw fixing. Now I’ve mixed a small bucket mix with enough mortar for both end ridges. I’ve used two-part spots and on one part, building sand for extra strength. And if you don’t know how to do this, I have a video available and I’ll drop a link in the description bar and at the end of the video after wetting, the substrate, with a little water, I’ve placed the mortar and bits of broken roof tile at The end of the verge then built it up about a good inch higher than required.
This is, though, that when the ridge tile is mated to the roof later and it’s finally tightened down the excess mortar gets squeezed and makes a full-contact with both the ridge and the roof before we do that, though, I’m going to slip the first ridge Union into Place and because this kit uses three union clamps per ridge joint, I can fit the first two now these just clip into place by a simple ratchet mechanism until they’re tight. Finally, the top screw clamp fixing can be fitted. Now. Let me turn this clip around for a second for a better look. If you look closely you’ll notice that the top screw clip has two defined barbed ratchets, that’s so that with this kit, you can cut off this lower section completely and that’s particularly useful. If, like me, you have opted for a higher ridge button position where the button beneath could potentially be fouled by the clip with the final clip positioned.
It’s now just a matter of slotting in the next adjoining ridge, so that it bought silk snugly to the plastic separators. Once you have two or three on loosely and in position and you’ve checked that they are running both straight and central to the ridgeline. You can think about tightening the screws down if you like now, if you’re, not careful here, you can over tighten these so don’t go berserk. What you’re looking for is a tightening onto the corrugated flashing or hip support tray below, but without so much force that walking across the tiles later will crack them once you’re happy with the clip and the tile give it a small wiggle test to just make sure It’s not loose either.
Next, I’m going to talk down the enrich tile carefully and rather than the screw biting directly onto the concrete ridge tile I found some cheap rubber. Tap washers from a DIY store makes an ideal gasket between the mating surfaces. Although a nice tub of silicone sealants also works with that done, you can now safely finish the mortar to the enrich tile without fear of disturbing it later, as you work on the rest of the roof, it’s now just the case of working your way across the Roof clipping in the ridges and talking them down, as you go just remember, to keep an eye on your ridgeline as you progress, if possible, try to keep any scratch lines you made earlier when you remove the ridges and mortar.
This can usually be done by stretching or compacting the ridges just by one or two millimeters per ridge tile, and it should ensure that you don’t end up short of reduce by the time you get to the end of the run. This is by far the fastest part of the whole process and before you know it, the whole run will be secured and completed. So there you go, that’s how to convert or refurbish an existing water ridgeline over to the modern dry rich system, and, as you can see, everything is neat and secure. The majority of the work as with month building and roofing jobs is in the preparation and when viewed from further down the roof or from ground level, the end result is remarkably subtle.
Well, that’s this video complete and if you found this video useful or interesting, please subscribe check out my website all my other videos, thanks for watching.
