Choosing roof tiles, bricks and mortar profiles

The main focus at the moment is tiling the roof. It’s a big job, so there’s not been a lot of visible progress over the past fortnight. Nevertheless, everything’s ticking along nicely on site.

Choosing the bricks and tiles was a big decision for us, as we know that these will have a huge impact on the final look of our home. There is a vast range of both bricks and tiles in various styles and colours, so my advice would be to put aside some time to research them. Work out what look is right for you, look out for houses you see that you particularly like the look of etc.

We also found it very useful to speak to our builder about the subject – they will have completed houses in a vast array of brick types, so why not draw on their knowledge and experiences?

If you’re interested in stats, once the roof is finished it will carry approximately 11,000 tiles – not including the garage!

The tiles are piled up at intervals all over the roof. This means that while the roofer is up there, he can easily work his way around without having to continually come back down to load up on tiles.

1: Eventually, Jan and I chose to use Audley Antique bricks (left) and Dreadnaught Staffordshire Blue roofing tiles (main picture).

2: This illustration shows the major mortar profiles. We have opted for bucket handle.

The bricks for the external walls of the house are stacked up at various points around the building. It’s little details such as this that just help make the construction process more efficient and less labour intensive.

Another decision we needed to make this week was which type of mortar profile we should specify to go between the bricks. There are various options to choose from and once more our builders have proved incredibly helpful – building us a sample panel wall using a number of mortar styles for us to look at.