Hard Slog

Arrived back in UK last Thursday after 10 days of hard slog on the house roof.
Grossly underestimated the amount of sheer hard graft involved in removing the old roof and replacing with new.

A great debt of gratitude is owed to Don and John who flew out with me and worked like dogs to complete the project.

My Portuguese improved no end during the 10 days we worked as very few (actually none) of the people at the various builders yards, skip providers,DIY shops etc. that I had to deal with spoke English.

The first two days removing the old roof and hand carting it down the steps was backbreaking, thighbusting, hipjolting, kneckwrenching, ribcracking (getting the idea?)bodybruising toil.

The tons and tons of rubble hand carted from the roof.

We found a number of rotten timbers which had to be replaced and Don's skills as a joiner were well utilised both on this and the sheeting of the none too level structure in preparation for the laying of the new tiles. Throughout all stages of the job John, as general labourer, worked like a horse.

Despite his sixty years and slight build I would not have swapped him for a dozen of today's youth.

New timbers inserted to replace rotten woodwork in readiness for the sheeting.

Once the new timbers were in place corrugated sheeting was applied upon which the tiles were to rest.

The tiles themselves are laid on the corrugated sheet and held in place with sand and cement which means you have to lay a few rows and then wait until the mortar sets before you can work further up the roof without disturbing those already laid.

Tedious, arduous and time consuming work.

The weather was very kind to us for the first week but on the monday of the second week the heavens opened and with the roof only about 90% complete and with no ridge tiles in place we hastily paid our bill in the restaurant we had just eaten dinner in and dashed back through lashing rain, crashing thunder and blinding lightning. Our worst fears were thankfully totally unfounded and the yet incomplete roof held out against the worst the Portuguese skies could throw at it.

A couple more days during which we were frequently rained off saw the completion of the tile laying and the addittion of the ridge tiles. The verdict...... well it holds water and though we may not be the fastest roofers on the algarve we can probably claim to be among the roughest!!!

Pictures of the complete job will be available following a return visit to tidy up our fairly amateurish mortar daubings.

Roofing

When you are looking for a property in Portugal agents are often keen to show you ruins and derelict houses with tales of how cheap it is to hire builders and tradesmen to turn the pile into a palace. Beware........we have a problem with a leaky roof and our experience of builders in the Algarve is that the first assumption they make is that as a foreign property owner you are rolling in money, the second assumption is that you are dumb enough to part with considerably more of it than is necessary to get a job done.


Now anyone who knows a Yorkshireman will know we are reknowned for two things, we tend to be a little blunt and we will not spend a penny if a ha'penny will do!!


You can I am sure imagine the fits of apoplexy caused by quotes for a simple roof re tiling job which varied between 8 and 27 thousand pounds. (no typos, that is 8 and 27 thousand pounds)

So having scoured the web for suppliers and instructions on how to make a watertight roof I am returning to Portugal in the next week or so along with a couple of dour Yorkshire tradesmen and doing the job myself. Will keep posting on progress.