Slate or Tile roof, which would you choose?

tom0407

Hi,

We are looking to redo our roof (detached victorian stone house) which will involve replacing the existing 120 year old welsh slate with something new. None of the existing slates are re-usable due to some weird stuff they painted on them about 20 years ago.

We've been told we can get the job done for £11k for a tile roof and about £19k for a slate roof... I want to do the right thing by the house as it's a lovely place which we hope to stay in for quite some time. However that's quite a big price difference... Also I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but the house has approx. 31 degree roof incline, so I'm concerned about the additional weight of tiles...

What should we do... Tricky (and big) decision...

Thanks,
Tom

Gloomendoom

If it had slates originally, I'd go with slates again.

tom0407

Thanks.

Yep it had slates originally, but a couple of builders since have said they'd personally go for tiles... But that it depends on preference really. I guess for them fitting tiles is easier and cheaper. Hmm

teneighty

You are correct that roof tiles can be significantly heavier than slates so the first thing you would need to do is establish that the roof structure would support the additional weight.

It would also be worth looking at cheaper slate options. Welsh slate is very expensive, Spanish and Chinese slate is considerably cheaper although I have personal reservations about quality. But you can get Canadian slate, Glendyne from memory, which is a cheaper alternative but in my opinion far superior to the Chinese and Spanish alternatives. There are also some artificial slates on the market now that give a very convincing appearance but I do not know how much they cost.

Finally, £19k seems rather expensive even for Welsh slate, either it is a very big roof or you should get other quotes to see if that figure is reasonable.

tom0407

Actually that's for Spanish or Brazilian slate. It's not a huge roof, 162 square metres I think and that's ex VAT too, so about £25k including VAT...

MX5huggy

You should slate, can the old slates not be cleaned? the roofer won't want to do this as its hard, but get some cheap labour to do it at £1 to £2 a slate it does not take many an hour to be worth doing. You could dip them in acid? or sand blast them, heat them with a heat gun.

Turn them over and use the clean side up?

tom0407

Hmm. The old slates are very old (120 years or so). They have some kind of tar based thing painted on them to extend their life. I think they put a hesian covering on and then painted this stuff on, so all the tiles are basically bound together in a mesh... It sounds simple to say just get some cheap labor to remove them, but I can't be doing without a roof on my house for any time, so I think I need to get the same guy who takes them off, to put them back as well, so the job has a chance of going smoothly, if that makes sense.

Thanks for the suggestions though, perhaps I'll mention to the roofing guy about re-using some although I know what he'll say.

dori2o

why not use reclaimed slate?

I had a small roof reslated a few weeks ago and the roofer used recalimed slate from a local rec yard. As most of the terraced houses around here were built the same way there's always loads of slate available.

The one thing I hate is an old building with plenty of character with brand spanking new square edged slate. It may as well be a tasteless soulless new build having that on the roof.

macman

With tiles you'd almost certainly have to introduce additional support to the existing timbers to take the added weight.
Have you considered artificial slate, which is a fibrous product? It looks a bit too shiny and regular when new, but does weather in after a few years.

tom0407

Yeah I was wondering about this. We have 20 year old artificial slate on another part of the property, but they don't look so good. Do you know if they have improved over the last few years?

Also i dont suppose you know if property developers generally use artificial slate or real slate on new housing estate developments? I've noticed quite a few new build, starter home type of properties and even larger developments lately with what look like great looking slate roofs.

MX5huggy

Products like these are commonly used.

http://www.marleyeternit.co.uk/Roofing/Slates.aspx

As you can see there is a large range even from one manufacture.