"Simon" wrote in message
ups.com...
My garage has corrugated asbestos-cement garage roof, which is cracked
beyond repair (I've emergency-sealed cracks and new ones now appear)
so
I want to replace it. (I know my local tip will take it with advance
notice).

The company that built it will replace it for not a great deal of
money
(about 250 quid I was quoted last year I think) but they will use
fibre-cement sheets.

However I've seen that you can get bitumen type corrugated sheets from
B&Q/wickes etc for about 7 quid a pop.

So the question is, which is the best material for a garage roof? I
kinda get the feeling that with fibre-cement it'll have the same
brittle characteristics and will degrade over not many years. Are the
bitumen sheets any better/worse?

As others have said, the bitumen-fibre sheets are sold as Onduline,
Coroline, and as a Wickes own-brand. Worth looking at the onduline web
site for recommendations on pitch, supports, and fixings. I've used it
on a moderately-pitched (20-odd degrees) roof successfully (so far).
Watch out for a few gotchas: it's only available in short, (2m) sheets,
with a cover width of about 850mm; matching ridge cappings are quite
expensive; and the sheds make their profit on the fixing screws.

Box section steel is cheaper, and can span further, but is susceptible
to condensation on the underside, which then drips everywhere, unless
you use a "proper" roof construction. Several ebay sellers offer it in
various finishes and two thicknesses. Beware of the thin stuff (0.5mm)
and a rather rum outfit in Erdington, although I've just finished a 25
square metre roof using both.

The big advantage of steel is that you can buy it in long lengths, so if
your garage has a very shallow front-back pitch, you can avoid end laps,
which are a bit of a pain, especially in fibre-cement sheets where you
have to saw chunks off the corners of the sheets to avoid having four
thicknesses of the stuff.

The SLE cladding site has some useful stuff http://www.slecladding.co.uk
but they're not especially cheap.


--
Kevin Poole
**Use current month and year to reply (e.g. )***
Car Transport by Tiltbed Trailer - based near Derby