In article ,
Alang writes:
Looking at American DIY programs on TV I saw quite a few houses being
built using boards for the roof and 'shingles' to cover them. The
shingles taking the place of tiles or slates. The system seems to work
okay but I did wonder about longevity. As others have remarked the
slate or tile roof can last hundreds of years with only little
maintenance. My own home is well over a hundred years old and apart
from a few loose slates after a storm last year has had little
attention. I can't see a wooden roof lasting more than a few years at
most without needing repair.

Traditionally, English homes were built with design lives of 200 years.
They don't all make it by any means for a variety of reasons and they
don't expect to last that long with no maintenance, but that figure
governed the design of the structure and choice of materials.

Many homes in the US (at least the areas I go to) aren't designed to
last anything like that long, perhaps 50 years tops. There's no point
putting a roof lasting 100 years on a home designed to last 50 years.
Tearing down and rebuilding a home on a plot there seems much more
common than it is here, and it's probably much cheaper than it would
be here. Heck, they even get the termites to do the tearing down ;-)

--
Andrew Gabriel
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