If you’re thinking about buying a thatched house, you may want to consider the pros and cons of living in one. Forget what you saw on a box of Chocolates, or on some fancy travel show.
There are a number of factors to consider, including the quality of the thatch and its durability.
You should also think about routine inspections and fire safety.
If you have fallen in love with a thatched cottage, should you go ahead and buy it or do some more research?
The use of thatch in a home provides a great deal of insulation.
A well maintained thatch will help you keep warm in winter and cool in summer.
However, a thatched roof needs to be inspected regularly for signs of decay or damage. If left unattended, deterioration can occur quickly.
Keeping your thatched roof in good condition is easy if you make an effort to perform routine inspections. This can increase the lifespan of your roof and help to prevent a potential problem.
One of the most important steps in keeping a thatched roof in tip-top shape is to have it swept every year.
Many insurance companies require that you do this. Also, if you have a stove or open fireplace, make sure to have it checked at least once a year by a qualified engineer and get the chimney swept each year too, vitally important in fire prevention on thatched homes.
Fire safety is extremely important with a thatched roof.
If you have a thatched roof, it is important to follow the right fire safety measures.
Bear in mind, if the worst happened and it did catch fire, the fire service in rural areas is patchy and response times slow, so one small fire could quickly envelope the entire roof.
This is especially true if you live in a rural area. Many fires in thatched structures begin in the chimney.
The risk of a chimney fire is reduced by installing a flue liner. This is best done with a rigid twin-walled stainless steel or flexible stainless steel flue liner.
Thatch roofs should also be cleared of clutter.
This can include items such as TV aerials and bulkhead type light fittings. Ideally, television aerials should be fitted to a free-standing pole to avoid lightning striking the roof. Nothing metal should be on the roof, including weather vanes.
Electrical wiring in the loft space should be run in fire-resistant ducting. It is also a good idea to use interlinked smoke alarms in the loft.
Durability is important with a thatch covered roof
Probably one of the most time tested and durable roofing materials around, a thatched roof adds a bit of old world charm to your home.
It also helps keep your heating bills down. However, it is important to know a few things before purchasing a building with a thatched roof.
Thatch isn’t just for old houses. In fact, it’s a popular building material in some equatorial countries. For instance, the ancient Hawaiian hale shelters were made of pili grass and lauhala.
A thatched roof can be made from many different materials. Reeds are the most common, but there are also bamboo, palm leaves, and even straw.
The performance of thatch varies depending on the type of cover and the skill of the thatcher.
In general, a reed roof will last for around 20 years.
That is a very important point to make as most houses with slate roofs will last upwards of 80 years, plus thatching is one of those dying rural trades and you can be on a waiting list of, in some cases, several years, to have your roof replaced.
In addition your home insurance premium will be much higher than on a normal house, so these are important things to consider before you buy a house with a thatch roof.
Put it this way, the roof of a thatched house is a constant fire risk.
You would not be able to have a garden bonfire, or an open flame BBQ outside due to the risk of an errant spark being carried with the breeze up to the roof, with disastrous consequences.
If you are a smoker, I would also avoid buying a house with a thatched roof!
Symbol of wealth rather than poverty?
Historically, thatched houses have been a mark of wealth.
However, a number of affluent individuals are rethinking their status symbols, if only for ecological reasons.
The reintroduction of thatch is just one small step in the right direction.
Putting aside the more esoteric details of thatching, there are actually several advantages to having a thatched roof.
It’s a natural insulator, and it is also a relatively environmentally friendly construction material.
Unlike tiled roofs, you don’t have to worry about it getting ruined in a storm. Keeping it looking good is a matter of having the right kind of grass to cut every few months.
It’s not just affluent people who have adopted thatching as a home improvement scheme. This is particularly true in parts of East Anglia, where water reed is a major player.
Alternatives to thatch
Thatch has been used for centuries in many parts of the world. It provides excellent insulation when dry, but can become degraded over time.
Thatch can be made from a variety of natural materials, such as grasses, reeds, or rushes.
It is a traditional roofing material in Korea, Japan, and several African nations. But plastic thatch is now an environmentally-friendly alternative to thatched roofs.
In the South Pacific, thatch has been used in Tiki huts. Some indigenous people still use palmetto-leaf thatch. Even the Chickees of the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes are still thatched with palmetto leaves.
The ancient Mayans, Aztecs, and Incans all used thatch as a roofing material. It is also used in Korea and some South American countries.
Although thatch has been used for thousands of years, it began to decline in Europe around the middle of the nineteenth century. However, it has largely survived to this day.
As a company we have no problems in applying our durable exterior wall coating system to renovate a thatched roof.
However if the house is really old, maybe even listed, we have to make sure that the local authority is happy for us to apply our coating, which usually cannot be combined with a colour change.
In the case of homes built with medieval building materials such as rammed earth or cob walls, we would not recommend the application of a modern wall coating and would suggest they find someone to apply a traditional whitewash or limewash instead, which is not something we do.
One drawback for us when spray painting a thatched roof house is the fact we sometimes unavoidably get a bit of paint on the underside of the eaves of the thatch as it is impossible to cover with masking paper, but hey you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs eh?
So there we are, the good bits and the bad bits, but would you buy a house with a thatched roof?
In summer, they look gorgeous and very “instagrammable” if that actually is a real word?
They keep your home cool in the summer and toasty warm in the winter, meaning lower heating bills.
They are expensive and difficult to replace and have a fairly short lifespan.
Mortgage companies are wary of lending against buying one.
Home insurance is far more expensive than a standard house.
However they are a massive fire risk and an accident waiting to happen.
I personally would not buy a house with a thatched roof, but hopefully this article has given you some information and some food for thought.
Thank you