3288 Anyone used a Quad for moving/revovation equipment?

I know nothing about quads, but a little about roofs!
I think you are incorrect in assuming that "concreting" means pointing. Your roof (from below) probably consists of small wooden rafters (7cmx7cm) resting on larger purlins (25cmx25cm). On top of this wooden structure, from the underside between the rafters, you will see either bricks, or chestnut planking.
On top of this surface, (wood or brick) at the moment, you will probably have a layer of under-tiles, and on top of these a layer of upper tiles. The lower tiles may be flat (tegole) or curved (coppi).
To do a comprehensive job on a roof of this type first all of the upper and lower tiles are removed and carried down to the ground, and a concrete screed is laid over the underlying structure (together usually with a hint of insulation and a thick welded roofing felt), and then all the tiles are carried up and relaid.
This is why the estimate appears rather costly if you were simply envisaging a bit of pointing!!

Thanks for this, at least I understand in more detail what they are doing now. The original quote was €5000 for the roof, and they are sticking by this, saying the extra €10,000 is for transporation of materials and scafolding. Therefore I still think this is excessive, and why i am looking at providing a method of transport to cut costs....

Thanks for the info...:)

Rafey -

Sorry, I don't know anything about quads either, but your idea sounds good to me. I'm buying a place at Sommocolonia (just across the valley on the other side of the Serchio, about the same height above sea level), not far away really. I noticed some houses for sale in Trassilico - it sounds an interesting village. I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the roof, this pleasure awaits me! Fortunately for me, "my" house does have vehicle access.

Relaxed -

Good to hear that you know something about Italian roofs, I've been trying to understand how they are constructed. I had been wondering, in the cases where the rafters are spanned by terra-cotta mezzane, how the lower tiles are attached to the mezzane. I read something recently which suggested that they are traditionally not attached, but just placed and held there by friction. Is that correct?

In the comprehensive rebuild which you have described, is the concrete screed laid directly on the mezzane, followed by insulation and roofing felt, and then the tiles placed on top of the roofing felt (not attached)? How thick is the concrete screed?

I'm certainly not thinking of doing this work myself (even if I were allowed to), but I like to know how it's done so that I can discuss options with contractors.

John

You are right that the roofing tiles sit directly on the mezzane, they are just held there by gravity since the pitch of the roof is generally about 20degrees, and the tiles are very heavy. The bottom row of roofing tiles is generally mortared in, with small pieces of broken tile wedged under the overhanging edge of the lowest row of upper tiles, to stop them sagging, and the verge tiles plus the ridge tiles are also mortared. A further security measure often seen in exposed areas are rocks strewn about the roof where there is a suspicion that wind might lift some tiles - I think this is a nice feature to recreate, even if the builder says there is no need!
The concrete screed (usually reinforced with a medium weight reinforcement grid ("rete")) is usually nominally 6cm thick, and goes directly onto the mezzane. It serves to consolidate the mezzane (which are just sitting on the rafters), not least against earthquakes, it spreads the roof load between the rafters, and makes it much easier for the builders to work on the fnal tiling, because clambering about on loose and fragile mezzane isn't a very clever idea! Frequently the roof concrete is tied into a "cordolo", a ring of reinforced concrete laid around the tops of the walls, if the existing walls are judged to be in need of this reinforcement - a further anti-seismic measure.
(If the construction is new, something like a garage, it is legitimate to avoid the concrete, and lay the roofing felt directly onto the mezzane - though they would probably be tavelle in this case - followed by the roofing tiles).
As to where the insulation goes, this is a point of discussion. Best practice informs us that the vapour barrier should be on the warm side of the insulation, (to avoid condensation occuring within the roof construction) and if you are regarding the roofing felt as the vapour barrier then the insulation should go above it, directly under the roofing tiles. Most often a closed cell rigid foam panel is used as insulation, and frequently now this is supplied with an incorporated vapour barrier (thin polythene). In this case the insulation goes on top of the screed, polythene side down, and then the felt goes on top of this. Seems a bit crazy to have two impermeable layers in the roof - but if you put the insulation on top of the roofing felt it becomes a rather popular building material for nesting birds!! (Putting the insulation below the roofing felt does make problems for the contractor since he is going to be up there with a gas bombola welding the roofing felt together, and the insulation doesn't much enjoy a naked flame.)
I am sure practices vary by region as to how much (if any) insulation is used, and there is a school of thought which suggests that the common 35mm thickness is worse than nothing - but using anything thicker creates real aesthetic and constructional difficulties at verge and eaves. There might be a recent regulation on insulation thickness - I'm not up to date!
As to the underside of the roof, if you want to have this sandblasted to clean off the mezzane and woodwork, this job is done after the roof concrete.
The only major check you should make while the work is going on is that none of the mezzane have got broken during the work. The most hazardous period is when the reinforcement mesh is being placed, but you must make sure by looking at the underside of the roof that there are no broken or cracked mezzane before the screed is laid - you won't be able to do anything about it afterwards!

Mille grazie for that very detailed explanation Relaxed, am now very much clearer. Is it normal to re-lay the same tiles?

.....oooh, yes!

As a property owner you are now obliged to build a small pile of tiles on the ridge of your roof for times when you may need to patch things up!

It's d'rigeur! That & plonk stones along the edges to prevent any 'lighter' tiles whizzing off in the Spring & Autumn winds that are so common in the Garfagnana; we started our little collection a few years back & only learned about the need for stones a few winters ago(!)

It is absolutely normal - one could almost say obligatory - to re-use the coppi (and tegole, if you have those flatter type of undertile). Obviously some will not be re-useable, and you will have to source some replacements - generally you will want to use second hand ones, and they are not cheap!
If your roof is "coppi on coppi" there is sometimes the option of re-doing the roof using your old coppi on top of new tegole (you hardly see any of the new tegole, and they go green or licheny very quickly) - but you wouldn't want to do this if all of your neighbours have got coppi on coppi, because the result is aesthetically different. It is very difficult to mix old and new coppi beacuse of dimensional differences.
In any case, be sure to use old tegole at the eaves and verges, because they are on show here!

Apologies for having hijacked the quad thread into a roof thread! With any luck webmaster will turn up and make a couple of threads out of this hybrid!!

[FONT="Book Antiqua"]Hi this is excellent informatiom.

After visiting our house in Abruzzo with the Geometra we were very confused as to exactly how our roof would be repaired so we looked on the internet And found out alot abot all the various types of roof components.Hopefully ours will be done in June so I will post the details as we've asked for the very old coppi to be reused and luckily they are coppi on coppi so we can put new ones underneath and the back of one roof is impossible to see so if needs be we can use some new there.

Does anyone know what a old coppi costs?They seem to be laying around everywhere in Abruzzo so I assume it would be ok to ask if I can buy some?If so how much to pay?

a good site to look at
[URL="www.ilvechiomattone.it"]www.ilvecchiomattone.it[/URL]

Becky[/FONT]

[QUOTE=Rafey] The original quote was €5000 for the roof, and they are sticking by this, saying the extra €10,000 is for transporation of materials and scafolding. Therefore I still think this is excessive....[/QUOTE]

Rafey

What size roof are you describing? Interestingly, we have recently been thinking of repairing the roof (110 mq) and have estimates for around E15K+IVA and a further E4K for scaff. The work involved installation of 'rafters' (not beams) and wood planking (cotto a further E4K), installation of a roofing felt, and replacement of tiles. The addition of a concrete cap to the roof required the foundation be underpinned, (not uncommon I believe?) so not a cheap job.

Contingent on your roof size, your estimate sounds good value!

Interesting to find someone with a boarded roof, rather than the brick like mezzane - it is not uncommon in well forested areas to find the wood solution.
I have never dealt with a timber underboarded roof, but when I was writing about the concrete screed on a roof, it did cross my mind that it didn't serve a lot of purpose if you had a boarded surface. The boarding could easily be fixed to the rafters with nails, thus making the whole roof covering an iintegral structure in little danger of shaking itself to pieces in an earthquake. The only possible virtue in dumping a load of concrete on a boarded roof, in my opinion, would be to increase the thermal capacity (which has the effect of making the internal temperature in the house more stable) - but you could achieve much the same result with insulation.
(There is quite possibly some daft unthought out regulation which imposes the concrete on you - but as you have discovered it does make the roof heavier and can create nervousness about foundations).

My roof is around 100sqm. Given that thought, the rafters are okay, and the felt underlay was replaced a few years ago, so it is just the outer layer that needs sorting, with the concerte underneath it, with scafolding.

As I said, they have quoted €5000 as a rough estimate before.

Cheers.

My apologies in advance if I have made some wrong assumptions here, but it sounds to me as if, at your first visit, the roof didn't appear to leak, so an "off the top of my head" guesstimate was made at 5,000Euros.
Quite possibly your geometra has now advised you that (while you are doing significant work to the house), you might as well bring the roof up to top specification - because the 15,000 quote is not out of the way for the sort of roofwork you are considering. A normalish rate is between 120 and 140 E per sq m, and if your site is "constrained" it is quite reasonable to add a percentage for such difficulties of access.
I suspect that it is not only the problems of materials delivery which have upped the estimate - I would lay odds on the likliehood of the specification having been upped as well!
None of this is to dissuade you from buying the quad and getting your hands dirty helping with the building process - but I doubt if you will save 10,000 E.

Fair play,

If I save €5000 it will be worth it!

[QUOTE=Rafey]Fair play,

If I save €5000 it will be worth it![/QUOTE]

And after you've saved €5000, you'll still have the quad!

Go on, admit that having the quad to play with is [I]really[/I] what this is all about. :D

Al

Okay, I admit it, I give in!!!

Yes - I want a Quad!!! :D

And I think you deserve one :) (the quad!!)