Guest notes

Today Mr Brzeski required the group to learn about roofing. The Natural House uses wooden shingles that cover the straw and clay blocks within a wooden structural framework. In the morning each of the three groups would construct a roof section and finish with shingles. He began however with some background information about the sourcing and use of shingles and their configuration in order to meet their objective of keeping us dry!

Photo by Marcin Bas

The wooden shingles were passed around the group. These had been cleaved with an axe, however the production of them now is carried out by using a band saw. There are certain parameters to the dimensions of the shingles which was interesting because in the UK the sizes are quite often standardised rather than flexible to different jobs.

Photo by Tony Appleby

The wood used for shingles must be sourced from a particular section of the tree in order to prevent warping and the moisture content must be below 20%. The shingles are fixed with galvanised nails that should only be 1/5 of the thickness of the shingle.

Photo by Tony Appleby

Each group made their sections, laying out shingles in the way they had been shown. There were notable communication problems however between the three groups. This was due not to the language difficulties, which were handled excellently, but to the large quantities of vodka consumed on the previous evening.

Tony