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Fibre Roof?


Strider
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Can anyone help? We are Normandy (area 76) style house with half brick and beams. There seems to be a lightweight roof on our property. The tiles seem to be made out of some fibrous material. The tiles where once black but now seem to be going white.(not sure of age) They are about 300mm square and about 6-8mm thick. Question. What are they made of? What is their life span? How much a mt would it cost to have them replaced? Any help would be appreciated

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[quote]Can anyone help? We are Normandy (area 76) style house with half brick and beams. There seems to be a lightweight roof on our property. The tiles seem to be mad[/quote]

The tiles you have are imitation slates called "Fibro Ciment" or trade name Eternit; They  have the advantage of being larger than standard slates and cheaper per square metre. The disadvantage is that they tend to "blanche" after about 10 - 15 years and this looks ugly. They also look too neat and any tradesman can spot them a mile of if he is used to using natural slate. However we did a roof last year with a new type of fibro ciment slate which has the edges chamfered and weathered to imitate real slate which is much better. The lifespan after they have blanched is probably not more than another 10 years they then start to deteriorate as they become porous. They have advanced in design and eternit gurantee the new types to be "blanch free" for longer but I am not convinced. The most common form of these type is in the familiar diamond pattern, but the 40 x 24 size of oblong is the alternative to standard pattern slate.

We are currently roofing a property in  dept 53 and today whilst talking to the client I pointed out that his main house roof which was done last year was in fact not slate ,but fibros. I recommend he checks his original devis to make sure he hasn't been charged for slate.

I always recommend premier choix slates to my clients and the roof we started today is being done in those. Beware because there are slates and  there are slates. Anyone reading this who has rust coloured marks apppearing on their new slate roof will see why. If anyone wants any more info please ask here and not by my PM.

Punch

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With regards to the fibro cement roofs, we have a small property in the Haute Vienne area. We were interested to discover upon purchasing, that our survey pulled up the fact that this fibro stuff has asbestos in it. We immediately went into to overkill and started getting quotes to replace the roof. One year on, we realise half the village has this stuff on, it is stable and the quotes we have had to replace it vary from around 10k to 16.5k euros, with a third builder looking at present to see if it actually needs redoing. Bearing in mind all the water its had chucked at it for the past year, there is only one small leak. We think the problem is now our guttering and barge-boarding, so will wait to see the verdict on that. Any other thoughts though about this asbestos thing? Thanks

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Thanks to both of you for your replies. I had no idea there was an asbestos content to these roof tiles. Does this cause problems when trying to dispose of them? Also thanks for giving me some idea of cost; one problem how big is your roof. Can you let me know how that works out to a square mt?

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