I’m allergic to cheap roofing felt

Bloke and I actually did something together last weekend. We re-felted the roof of the garden shed.
The shed was inherited with the house, and while I’d love to say I use it solely for gardening, it’s inevitably become a dumping ground for anything we don’t want in the house. Lawnmower, kids bikes, portable loo bucket for camping, several paddling pools and various sports equipment. In short, it’s a tip. It’s also warped at the back, but as we can’t see it, we don’t worry about it.

Yes, this is the 'After' shot

It’s also, most inconveniently, in the sunniest spot in our north-facing spot. Really, we need to replace it, but sheds are expensive and Bloke and I are not really shed-putting-together-types. He scoffed when I said we could sell the old one on Ebay and the buyer would come and dismantle it and take it away. “People don’t do that, do they? What a pain.”
So when the roofing felt finally came adrift and was flapping around, letting water in, I bought the cheapest roofing felt (still £17) and we made time to put it on. It was ridiculous. The felt ripped like paper every time you tried to move it, the nails ran out, and I hadn’t had the intelligence to buy the can of £10 roofing felt adhesive that I had seen but had ignored.
Still, it’s better than before, for now anyway. I’m pretty sure the first heavy rain and windy conditions will have the whole lot off again.

Oh, and if you end up having to do the same yourself, wear gloves. Bloke and I both had swollen sore hands afterwards, which we think was something to do with the toxic coating. Yuk.

2 Comments

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2 responses to “I’m allergic to cheap roofing felt

  1. Fi's avatar Fi

    Just re-felted part of my allotment shed last night. Some pieces of the old stuff, little crumb sized bits, fell on my head. Now I have about 6 itchy, painful lumps on my head. Not bites (which you do get often at the allotment) as there are no bitemarks – my son had a good look for me. Really annoying. He thought it might be caused to the old roof felt. Looks like he might be right. When we put up the new felt we both wore gloves so no problem with our hands. Wish I’d worn a baseball cap or something now 😦

  2. Brandon's avatar Brandon

    Hi , I’m an allergic to roofing tar, just the smell of it makes me shut down and feel down and terrible. Something it does to my brain chemistry. It’s been like this ever since I can remember. It’s very unhealthy too and is a carcinogen no matter what the other people say because it is. I used a coal tar shampoo before and had the same issues felt neurologically off. Sorry you had bad reaction

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