Thatched roof- yay or nay?

[20thCenturyGhosts]

Theoretical as the house is out of budget anyway, but would you go for a thatched roof? Just looked up cost of repair and it is up to £25,000!!!

Around here there's around an 18 month wait on thatchers and was like that pre covid, tried 2 thatchers and both the same delay. Ours was due to be done in first lockdown as urgent. But chimney needed doing first and the local authority planning department was running really slowly and and that took 8 months to get approval and just got that mid first lockdown. Then the tudor brick and lime mortar company were shut in first lockdown for chimney and it had to be that brick and that lime mortar for the listed building regs. So that got done around July then thatch in August. Thankfully it didn't leak.

The thatch company were operating in first lockdown at 20% capacity (often family firms with some older family workers) so would have added more delays, maybe 2 months. In the later lockdowns they started work again and brought own toilet and never entered house here. So about 2 months of delay is covid and 18 months normal here.

They definitely need thatchers. The ridges need doing about every 10 years but that's much quicker and cheaper, our neighbours got in with us for 2 re-ridges.

That's a shame they are not looking after it properly, if its listed and someone reports it to the council they could get in trouble for that. Occassionally there are grants but its rare nowadays. It's very specialist so dread to think what two cowboys will do on it and could well make it worse. Their insurance may well be invalid too, ours needs thatch in good condition.

You can get a thatcher round to do a free condition survey but with ours our insurer said they would only insure if it was in good condition and we could only find the one insurer. NFU refused ours. They also give a quote for rethatch / repair. But our whole roof would be around £40k but it lasted 40 years or so.

Our house used to be thatched until Victorian times. We looked into getting it changed to thatch but decided against it on the grounds of maintenance costs and safety. It looks lovely, my sister in law lives in a street full of thatched houses, so pretty.

I live in a thatched house too

When I bought it 4 years ago the whole of it was redone in water reed and cost £20k - it hadn't been redone since 1948.

Only the ridge should need redo-ing after 15 years.

I don't have any open fireplaces, which helps on the insurance, and was only allowed 8 spotlights as recommended by the building inspectors, (didn't have them in the end anyway).

Building insurance is £800 per year.

Never been overrun by mice, rats, spiders or birds!

And I can never hear the rain falling.

Wonder how many replies have actually lived in a thatched building. 🤨

The cost to renew is completely dependent on size. Depending on which side faces South/ North a combination of renew/ replacement can be done. The ridge will need renewing periodically. With the right material and maintenance, the roof will last 50-75 years.

Of course insurance can be obtained. We even had wood burning stoves + the thatched roof! Yes you will pay more, insurance is often more expensive in period properties. If you want cheap insurance, try living in a modern box. Living in older properties is a way of life.

We didn’t have any resident in the roof either. And no more spiders than usual despite having roof windows built into the thatch 🤷‍♀️

This gives typical life expectancies for different types of thatched roof, you get regional variations in materials used:

www.thatchadvicecentre.co.uk/thatch-information/care-thatch/longevity

Re cost I would get a quote from a thatcher as ours was a lot more than we thought it would be based on the internet but two came out and were in a thousand of each other, its a 3 bed though has got a lot of roof. It was £28,000 incl vat for Norfolk water reed and ornamental ridge - the front needs to be done in 10 years or so but front is smaller. The previous one at back lasted 40 years but would have been longer if had been better maintained, can last up to 70 or so for water reed. But other areas use long straw which has a much lower life expectancy.

Our last-but-two house was a thatch. We purchased in 2011 and the previous owners had re-thatched it four years previously. It was a three room wide/one deep, three-storey, Georgian house, attached on one side (end of terrace) and iirc cost the previous owners a little in excess of £20k for straw in 2007, which seemed cheap to me. It was a very basic design of thatch with no twiddly bits though.

We had a wood burner (also fitted by the POs) and had a narrow escape with a chimney fire, after the flue came unattached at the back - DH actually had to climb up inside the huge inglenook to put it out 😮

Despite this, DH loved the thatch - and I admit it looked pretty - but I hated it and couldn't wait to sell up/buy somwhere with a normal roof, lol! We did also have loads of spiders, but like a PP we had them in other old houses too.

Strangely, although living in an older (400 years) house now that's even more rural, we get less spiders here.

Personally I wouldn't buy another thatched property and even DH admits the risks/costs are prohibitive. As someone (also a thatch dweller) on another forum said "It's a rich man's roof" 🙄

It's like marmite, people either love or loath thatch!
Personally after living in a thatched house for 20 years, I can't see why anyone wouldn't love it.
Re-roofed once, re-ridged once. Scaffold costs are where you need to budget, we liase with our neighbours. Cool in summer, warm in winter. Plenty of storage in the roofspace. No drainage bills.
No problem with insurance(open fire not log burner though).
Rural but no extra creatures living in our thatch.