A new build roofed in dark concrete tile, with rooflights

A new build near Oakham, and the one roof where nothing has to be undone first. The rafters are already square, the timber is dry, and the whole covering can be set out properly from the eaves instead of worked around whatever the last roofer left.

Membrane and battens

A Roofers Choice 170 breathable membrane went over the rafters, lapped down the slope and dressed into the eaves, with treated battens fixed through it. The photographs taken at this stage are the ones worth looking at: once tiles are on, nobody can see whether the membrane was lapped correctly or whether the battens are the right size and properly fixed, and those are the two things the roof's life actually depends on.

Tiles and rooflights

The covering is a dark flat-profile concrete tile, loaded out across the slopes and laid up from the eaves. Rooflights are set into the finished tiling rather than added afterwards, so the tiles are cut around the frames and the flashings are dressed into the courses as the roof goes up. Doing it in that order is the difference between a rooflight that sits in the roof and one that sits on it.