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Even apart from the inevitable failures in achieving an even consistency of clay and the defects in the kiln burning processes, a high proportion of early hand-made tiles were astonishingly tough and durable. The tiles that survive and many have indeed survived, are admired for their rough-textured surfaces and their slight irregularities which provide a pleasing appearance on the whole span of a roof particularly when mellowed by harmless lichens which tend to adhere to such surfaces. The marked camber from the top to the bottom of each tile is effective in the preventing of seepage of water underneath, but the cross camber also found is a less desirable feature since water is apt to creep between the edges and heads of the tiles. This, combined with an insufficient lap between one course of tiles and the next, often led to the practice of torching the heads of the tiles with lime and hair mortar from within the roof space. Today there are different types of roofs are used by the homeowners and installed by skilled professionals and Roofing Contractors Austin. Tiles of the period up to about 1650 were always hung in position with two oak pegs to each tile placed over the edge of rent oak laths. Fir or pine rent laths were introduced at a later date. No nails were employed and the tiles merely sat on the roof slopes depending on their weight for their stability and on what strength existed in the torching mortar below. The occasional tile slipped down the roof slope but the rough texture of the tiles one against another and the growth of moss or lichen helped to keep them in place. The tiles of such roofs and the laths were merely laid across the squared rafters typical of the period which met at the top; jointed in pairs without a horizontal ridge piece. This means that the undersides of the tiles are open to inspection since in the majority of cases there will be no intervening layer of any other material underneath the tiles. Having inspected a comparatively intact roof covering from the exterior the Roofing Contractors Austin may well be taken aback to find on climbing into the interior of the roof space that the wooden pegs have generally decayed badly. These may be rotted from moisture introduced through the torching mortar, which has become damp, or may be so affected with woodworm that they have no strength left at all. Other pegs may be shrunken and loose so that they may be pulled away with the finger, while thin pegs may have broken. The surveyor may marvel at the fact that although the fixings may be almost nonexistent or completely inefficient, the tiled covering is nevertheless intact, particularly as the pitch of the roof of such houses is often rather steeper than the 40° or 45° common with modern tiled roofs, since in earlier roof structures, a pitch of 52° was relatively commonplace. It is important to hire the best roofing contractors who provide high quality services at reasonable rates. Reading the reviews provided by the author is one of the best ways to gain necessary information on http://www.roofingcontractoraustintx.net/contact/.
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