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How To Tile A House Roof In Thailand

Photos showing step-by-step how the concrete tiles were placed on the big roof of our Thai retirement house in Pakchong (Pak Chong), Thailand.

These images were taken by Kanyah in Pakchong (Pak Chong) a few weeks ago. I’m sorry put these photos are out of sequence with the other posts like Roof Tiles On – But Problems Are Arising which shows photos taken on 29th March, 2011.

A Pallet Of Roof Tiles

Above, as the Caption says, a photo of a pallet of roof tiles. What more can I say?

Except, perhaps that roof tiles in Thailand are very, very heavy, and need a strong supporting roof structure. Also, as you will note in the photos below, they take a lot of human effort to lift into place.

Weight Of Ceris Terracotta And CPAC Cement Roof  Tiles in Thailand

This is an extract from the structural calculations undertaken by the structural engineer employed by our Thai Architect who designed our house:-

Thai House Concrete / Ceramic Roof Tile Weight - Structural Calculation

Above, the structural engineer has taken 60 kg/m2 for the weight of the roof tiles when he performed the structural calculations for our own retirement house in Pakchong (Pak Chong), Thailand. This was based on CERIS terracotta roof tiles.

Below are details of the weights of CERIS terracotta roof tiles from the Ceris website:-

Weight Of Ceris Terracotta Roof Tile

Also, I changed to CPAC concrete roof tiles to achieve a cost-saving change from the CERIS terracotta roof tiless I initially agreed to. Here are the weights of the CPAC concrete roof tiles:-

CPAC Concrete Roof Tile Weight

Above, the CPAC concrete roof tiles weight 4 kg each and you can have 10 tiles per m2, so the total weight is 40 kg/m2, much lighter than the CERIS terracotta roof tiles but still heavy.

Tiling The Main Roof 01

Above, the bottom of the human chain used to place the roof tiles on the roof. Two people on the ground and one on a ladder.

Note how rough the concrete beam looks. This will be rendered to a smooth finish as shown in the photos of the wall at the bottom of this page.

Tiling The Main Roof 02

Above, looks like one person on the second floor and five on the roof, plus the two on the ground and one on the ladder adds up to nine people in the human chain to get the tiles to the roof. On the roof at the left of the picture you can see the tiles neatly stacked on the rafters ready for laying.

Tiling The Main Roof 03

Above, a good days work. All the tiles on the rafters ready for laying tomorrow. (The truth is I have no idea how long it took to get to this stage. Kanyah doesn’t give me that kind of detail)

There is no sign of the heat reflective foil that is supposed to go on the rafters before the tiles are laid.

Tiling The Main Roof 04

And look, the next day the tiles are almost all laid!

(Next day, or days later – I shall never know…)

Notice the wood going up at the eves. Hope it’s been varnished.

Tiling The Main Roof 05

Above, a photo of the gable. It looks very neat, but it’s not the appearance I wanted. From this angle you should not be able to see the gable tiles, just the Thai-style ‘barge boards’.

Tiling The Main Roof 06

Here is a close-up (ish) of the gable and I want to draw your attention to the underside of the roof tiles where you can see the heat reflective foil that is art of the CPAC cool roof system.

More Soil Raising The Height Of The Drive

A shot of the finished roof but mainly the built-up access road or drive. At this stage I have lost count of the number of truck of soil we have had delivered.

Front Wall Road Side View

The front wall is nearing completion. Notice the steel mesh fencing panels at the right. You can see that one panel is installed at 90 degrees to the wall and I assume this forms the boundary with our neighbor on this side. But there is another panel continuing in line with the wall and I guess this is in front of the neighbour’s house. Could be that Kanyah gave the neighbour a bit of fencing?

Another View Of The Front Wall From The Road Side

In the photo above you can see the smooth finish given to the wall which was built from cast-in-situ concrete posts and concrete block infill. The smooth finish was achieved by ‘plastering’ the rough block wall with a cement mixture. In the U.K. we call this ‘rendering’. Remember in my commentary on the second photo above (Captioned “Tiling The Main Roof 01″) I pointed out how rough the concrete beam looked? Well all the concrete beams and columns will be rendered to produce a smooth finish, just as you can see with the wall. This rendering will then be painted.

Front Wall Showing The Opening For The Gate

Inside View Of The Wall 'Wing'

Front Wall At The Gate Position

Above, it’s not clear what they are doing here. My guess is that they are making a flat strip of concrete for the gate to run along on wheels. Better than a large swing gate or gates.

Front Wall Viewing From The Garden Side

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