Hipped roof stripped and re-covered in clay tile, Canterbury

A rendered detached house in Canterbury with a twin-hipped roof, taken back to the rafters and re-covered in red clay plain tiles. Scaffolded, stripped, re-membraned, re-battened and re-tiled, with the valley between the two hips reformed and a dry ridge fitted throughout.

Property: Rendered detached house, twin-hipped roof
Covering: Red clay plain tiles
Underlay: New breathable membrane
Battens: Fully re-battened
Ridge and hips: Dry fixed, not mortar bedded
Valley: Reformed between the two hips
Access: Full scaffold to all elevations

Why the roof came off rather than being patched

Once a roof of this age is losing tiles in more than one place, patching becomes a series of visits rather than a fix. Stripping it back to the rafters is the only way to see the battens and the timbers properly, and on a roof like this the battens are usually the thing that has gone. It is also the only point at which you can put a breathable membrane underneath, which the original build would not have had.

Two hips and a valley

A twin-hipped roof has more junctions than a plain gable roof, and the valley where the two slopes meet is where the water concentrates. That junction is the part of this roof most likely to have leaked before and the part most worth getting right, so it was reformed as part of the work rather than patched back in. The hips themselves were run in with the same clay tile so the lines stay consistent from the road.

Clay tiles and a dry ridge

Red clay plain tiles suit this style of Canterbury property and weather to a softer colour over time in a way concrete does not. The ridge and hips were finished with a dry ridge system, which is mechanically fixed rather than bedded in mortar. Mortar bedding has a life of roughly 20 to 30 years and is the single most common thing we come back to on older Canterbury roofs. Dry fixing removes that maintenance cycle entirely.

The job, in order

Canterbury hipped roof stripped to the rafters with breathable membrane laid, full scaffold in place — Stripped back and dried in. The blue you can see is the new breathable membrane going over the rafters before any battens are fixed.

New treated battens being fixed over breathable membrane on a Canterbury hipped roof — New battens set out over the membrane, gauged to the tile.

Membrane and batten detail across the hip of a Canterbury roof — The same detail carried around the hip, where the two planes meet.

Reformed valley between two hipped slopes finished in red clay tile, Canterbury — The valley between the two hips. This is where the water from both slopes ends up, so it is the detail worth spending time on.

Dry ridge system along the ridge line of a red clay tiled roof in Canterbury — Ridge line finished with a dry ridge system, mechanically fixed rather than bedded in mortar.

Completed red clay plain tile hipped roof in Canterbury with lead flashed vent pipes — Finished, with the vent pipes flashed in and the hips running clean to the eaves.

Front elevation of a completed clay tile hipped roof replacement in Canterbury — From the front. New roof, same house.

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