SOFT TILE

"Soft roofing" is a conventional name of a construction of water isolation carpet for the arrangement of which rolled materials, polymerous diaphragms, mastic materials and soft (bitumen) tile are used. These materials do not require the arrangement of hard basis under them.

The oldest and the most well-known rolled materials for roofing are bitumen materials on the carton basis. Though these materials are still widely used in building, they do not correspond to modern requirements.

Soft bitumen tile is often called roofing thin slabs or shingles. It is presented in the form of small flat sheets with figured cuttings on one edge (one sheet usually imitates 3-4 tiles). On one hand, this is a piece material but on the other hand, it may be referred to the group of "soft roofing" as according to its structure and used components it is close to rolled materials. Besides, like all other materials of soft roofing, it performs only a protecting (isolating) function.

There are more than 20 colour solutions of bitumen tile: from red, producing an impression of traditional tile covering, to imitating grown with moss or lichen coverings. Slabs may be of different forms (in the form of a hexagon, rectangle, wave-shaped etc.)

THE SPHERE OF USAGE

Bitumen slabs are used both for the arrangement of new roofing and reconstruction of new one (it is put right on the ruined coverings, prepared in a definite way). In case of the arrangement of soft tile above bitumen covering, the latter fulfill the function of a lower lining carpet.

The main advantage of bitumen tile is the fact that it may be used for roofing of any difficulty, form and configuration (even for domes and onion-shaped roofs), and it ideally suits surrounding landscapes.

In the majority of countries in West Europe (Germany, for instance) bitumen roofing materials are prohibited for usage when arranging roofing. In Russia ruberoids are widely used but the first steps to change them by modern materials have been already taken. In 1994 Moscow government published a decree prohibiting the usage of ruberoid at roofing for capital building in Moscow. But still the problem of closing the plants producing ruberoid does not exist. There are temporary premises and premises of a practical function in the countryside, different sheds etc where it is not necessary to use long-lived materials with improved technical indices.

On our market you can find soft tile of the following firms: ICOPAL, KATEPAL, LEMMINKAINEN (Finland); TEGOLA (Italy); MIDA (Lithuania); GAF, SHINGLE (USA); ONDULIN (France) and some others.

TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The only relative advantage of such materials is their cheapness, which affects the materials on carton basis still having their share in the volume of production and realization of roof materials. Their main disadvantages are low frost-resistance, small deformability, accelerated aging, insufficient heat-resistance, being subject to rotting, a necessity to lay a great number of layers (to 5), an impossibility to work with them at negatives temperatures etc. A disadvantage of rolled roof materials is a great number of joints (laps) when producing a carpet