Building a small pitch slate roof

[Tom.]

How easy is it to build one? I have a flat-roofed extension on my kitchen, which is built outwards from the old wall. There will no doubt be a girder along the ceiling supporting the weight of the back wall, which will stay in.

Because so little light gets into the back of my house, I fancied putting a pitched roof up instead of the current flat roof, and installing 2 skylights. I wanted to do this myself, with help from my dad (who is very handy with this kind of thing). The lowest part of the roof would be the same height as the flat roof, the roof would then slope up a couple of feet (its only a small extension).

In principle, apart from the slating and flashing, I don't see it being a major project. There is no load to consider.

Are there ready-made brackets for the joists, wall, and eaves?

 

[2scoops0406]

Well, it would have to be a very small roof, as to get the required pitch of about 22.5 degrees, only allows for a roof depth of about 5 ft if you only want if to rise 2 ft. You can get away with lower pitches, but this can cause the slates to rattle, and become prematurely damaged.

 

[2scoops0406]

As to the other bits, then yes there is a load on it, it may not be very large but there is still a load. The hardest and possibly most expensive bit will be putting the skylights in.

 

[masona]

Pretty straight forward, see this

 

[Tom.]

Thanks for the help, it does seem like a fairly straightforward job. I just wanted options as I need to get more light in that back room and cutting into the flat roof just seems a bit silly when I can rip it off and replace it with a roof that'll look much better on the building.

 

[kevin34]

tom there are cantelever systems available that will do the job for you as cheap and look as good, they also dont need anything stronger that a good brick wall to fix to.

very easy to fix as well.you can even get ones that have plastic immitation tiles and slates that look very good, take a look on the web for porches and ya will come across some.

worth thinking about

 

[Tom.]

Thanks, but I prefer traditional materials to their modern equivalents.

 

[Nige F]

have you costed the price of Real slates? Don`t leave them lying on the ground for long.