Non Asbestos Roof Slates

A number of these products promising a life of 50 years or longer were found to fail early in their life in the 1990s.

Non asbestos roof slates.

Health safety concerns related to the removal of asbestos containing roofs. New homes built prior to 1970 s with asbestos roofs were lauded for the longevity of their roof systems as the roofs had a life expectancy of 30 50 years. The slates are pigmented during production and are fully compressed. Slate hooks work well for fastening replacement tiles in place.

Before the 1980s most artificial roofing slate was made from asbestos cement a material that had a long track record of successful performance. On diamond shaped tiles use two hooks one at 4 o clock and one at 8 o clock see below. A ladder hook is inexpensive and works pretty well on asbestos roofs. When you use slate hooks you don t have to drill the tiles or caulk anything.

A number of non asbestos manufactured or synthetic slates or fiber cement roof shingles slate tiles that were produced when manufacturers stopped using asbestos were made using wood fibers or other materials. Cembrit fibercement slates are manufactured using portland cement together with a non asbestos formulation of superior blended synthetic and cellulose fibres. Their color ranges between grey light green peachy orange and even purple.