eco adaptions
Menu
overview of information on thatch roof craft in South Africa
There are 9 commercial thatch roof professionals in SA who are on the web if you do a search, and many more which use other marketing platforms. The best and most informative website in my opinion is that of the professional association : the Thatchers association of South Africa. They proudly advertise that members of the association won a competition for the best thatch roof in the world, at the International Thatching Society’s Congress, beating all of Europe and Japan with a traditional Zulu styled beehive structure.
Professional Thatcher's Association: controlling construction problems
The association’s website is worth visiting. There are two free downloadable documents on thatching, with numerous tips on how to choose a professional thatcher and recommendations on ensuring the structural soundness of thatch roofs and design for their longevity. These sound practices dictated by the material are frequently broken by thatchers, by roof builders, by architects, quantity surveyors and engineers who do not know about thatch construction, and the customer needs to be well informed, especially on what kind of professional co-operation is needed in the design, in order to be prepared for commissioning this type of work, and for watching over and avoiding shortcuts that can be taken, to their disadvantage.
using the right thatch
There is an illustrative example on the site on the advantages of using good quality mature thatching material, and the false economy of using immature thatch grass and reeds. Immature reeds and grass have a soft living core which rots and produces methane. The roof design can trap this methane at certain spots in the roof. Unscrupulous dealers immerse this immature material in fire retardants to disguise their greenness, and these worsen the problem of the trapped gas. The fire hazard is ironically worsened by incorrectly applied retardants. Such a methane engorged roof would go up with a bang indeed. If what they call the ‘fines’ are still stuck to the grass on the roof interior… as immature grass is hard to clean of seeds and leaves, they act as tinder in the case of a fire. Immature thatching material also has not developed the coating of resins which come with ripening, that make the mature grass water impervious. There are thus many reasons for using mature thatching material that has ripened for a full season, and is harvested after the onset of winter frosts, in the case of the thatch harvested in the grasslands. Thatching reed (Restio) roofs made from the indigenous thatching reeds found in the Cape last extremely well. I deduce twice as long as grass roofs.
the flexibility of the material and thatch roof designs
Another advantage of visiting this website is the beautiful, extremely creative roof designs found in accompaniment to the text which can serve as an inspiration and a model showing just how much can be done with this flexible roofing material. I personally love the smell of thatch in a thatched home, and air feel this gives, of quiet, damped sound and modulated humidity, especially when accompanied by clay structures.
traditional african thatching
Returning to traditional thatch building. I think that much architecture and design inspiration can be found on this continent. The pictures on the thatchers association website show that exquisite traditional African appearance and style that can be created with creatively used thatch. This continent had some wonderful architecture before colonisation made the ‘box’ with the pitched roof a norm for house style. Before then we had square houses, but also round houses, domed houses, pear shaped and beehive shaped, steep cones and flat cones, and finally semi-spherical houses, built with portable reed mats in the Nama Matjieshuis, and with grass in traditional Zulu houses, part of South African culture of the past. Reeds, grass and bamboo are globally used building materials. Thatch's flexibility as a medium allows the most beautiful organic and individualized shapes. If you can find pictures of old architecture in old colonial photographic records in books about West, East and South Africa as an inspiration for your thatch roof design, I recommend doing this. I found pictures at the Ruhr Universiteit in the early nineties, but there are many South African sources. If you take nothing else, the diversity of historical roof forms is evidence enough of the creative aesthetic genius of this continent's people.
site map
home page with links to useful articles on eco issues and ideas for green living
different ways of building green
building with earth, traditional and modern
reed roofs, exquisite use of renewable materials
site map
home page with links to useful articles on eco issues and ideas for green living
different ways of building green
building with earth, traditional and modern
reed roofs, exquisite use of renewable materials